STALKER: The Escort Mission
by Funkatron7
Summary: An experienced stalker named Viktoriya is given a job escorting a young scientist to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
1. Chapter 1

Viktoriya put her ear to the wall of the dark, dusty shed she'd taken temporary refuge in. There were dogs outside. She hated dealing with dogs; they were always either too quick and too far away or they were right on top of you and tearing out your jugular. She took a quick inventory of everything she had to help her out of her predicament, doing her best to keep her movements and breathing as minimal as possible in the hopes the dogs would forget about her and leave. 'Well I've got my watch, my boots and my clothes. One Browning HPSS-1m, with 3 rounds left. One AKM-74/2 rifle, with no rounds remaining and a busted scope. One combat knife. One bullet wound, right arm, packed with gauze. A backpack full artifacts, one bottle of anti-rad pills, one flashlight and one flare gun. A wallet with 2000 rubles. No food. No bandages. No luck. Outstanding.'

Viktoriya looked at her watch, straining to make out the hands in the inky blackness of her shelter. It was about 10:45pm. The doors to her home at Sidrovich's hotel locked at 11, and a night outside in her current condition could mean losing her arm. She put her ear to the wall again. She could still hear the dogs, but only faintly. They'd dispersed at least, a lot quicker than she'd expected them to. 'It's barely 100m to Sid's, and I doubt I'm going to get a better chance than this.' Viktoriya stood up and started slowly edging the door open; her Browning pointed at the gap in the doorway in case any of the dogs heard a creak and decided to investigate.

Viktoriya stepped out into the open field dotted with small hills and sparse trees, Browning still held by her injured right arm. It was a clear night, with a large moon, so she was able to see where she was going without resorting to her flashlight (which would just attract the dogs to her). She unsheathed her knife with her left hand and held it up under her right, so that her healthy arm was supporting the other one holding her gun. The knife would require more strength to use properly if a dog got close enough to her, which is why it got the healthy arm. Cautiously she started walking towards Sid's. She didn't have eyes on the building, but Viktoriya knew it was just over the small hill about 20 metres in front of her (she'd taken this route many times before). Darting her eyes around and straining her ears for any signs of the dogs, she walked up to the top of the low hill, crouching just before the peak. From there she could see why the dogs had left so quickly.

About 25 metres in front of her, and fortunately with its back turned, Viktoriya saw a boar. It looked to be about as tall as she was, could outrun her any day of the week and had tusks long enough for her to tap-dance on. '_All that radiation did them a world of good' _she thought. It was standing between her and the outer perimeter of the abandoned military base that was Sidrovich's place and it didn't appear to intend on moving any time soon. 'Even if I had 100 bullets for my Browning I wouldn't have a chance of taking that thing down before it bowled me over' she thought, not allowing herself to panic just yet. 'I could fire off that flare, but no-one will see it and come after me before the boar clocks it and-' there it was: she had a plan.

Moving as quickly as she could without alerting the boar, Viktoriya re-holstered her Browning and took out her flare gun. She loaded it and raised it to her eye level, looking for a target. 'It needs to go through the boar's field of vision, or this isn't going to work. The dim moonlight made it difficult for her to see very far, but she could make out a large bush, about 10 metres ahead of the boar at her 2 o'clock, that would serve.

Viktoriya slowly crouch-walked to her left, keeping a wide arc around the boar until the bush was directly in front of her, and the boar was a bit to the left of that. She would be in the boar's field of vision now, and had to avoid making any sudden movements. Calmly, she sheathed her knife and raised the flare gun with both hands. The shot she wanted to make would've been called impossible even if she hadn't a bullet wound in one arm, but she was out of time and options now. Viktoriya regulated her breathing, took aim above the bush to compensate for the drop off and squeezed the trigger. The flare hissed from the gun and shot forwards, landing right in the middle of the target and igniting it with a somewhat unimpressive 'phwoosh.' Fortunately it hadn't rained in a while and the flames were able to spread quickly, creating a moderately large flame.

The boar instinctively ran towards the sudden commotion but, when it reached the fire, turned 90 degrees and ran away from it. Exactly as Viktoriya had hoped. 'Okay, need to move quickly now' she thought to herself, dropping the empty flare gun and taking out her knife and Browning again. Viktoriya figured she had about five minutes to get inside Sid's, considering how long it took her to crawl up the hill, pick her move and take the shot. She stood up, but not completely, and started at a low-run towards Sid's building. In what she thought an absolute miracle, she made it to the building and stepped in the door without incident, holstering her gun and her knife as she did.

Viktoriya breathed a sigh of relief as she entered the open lobby of Sidrovich's building, filled with fellow Stalkers chatting amongst themselves, smoking and gambling. There was a time, before she came to the zone, when she would walk into a place like this and find men climbing over each other to buy her a drink. However, years of Stalking had hardened her facial features and granted her a reputation as someone not to be messed with. She wasn't complaining; she had more important things to worry about than whether the boys liked her or not.

Sid's building was once part of a small military base near the Agropom research institute, but when the military moved out Sidrovich moved in and set it up as a makeshift Stalker hotel. As long as you could pay a (relatively) small rent, and you didn't deliberately cause any trouble, this was the safest place a Stalker could be in the entire zone. The place was owned and run by a man named Sidrovich, who was also the resident trader. He would buy almost anything from you, and had almost anything to sell. He also managed Stalker contracts, for when anyone needed to hire a Stalker to do some dirty work. 'Why on earth did I become a Stalker when I could have opened a hotel?' Viktoriya thought to herself.

Now that the adrenaline of the boar incident had worn off the pain crept back into her arm, reminding Viktoriya that she needed medical attention. 'The artifacts will have to wait; right now I need to go see Yevhen.' Yevhen was the resident doctor at Sid's. He charged a lot, but was lenient to her because he and her father had been friends prior to the second incident at the reactor, when her father disappeared. Viktoriya paid him full price when she could, though, and this was one of those times. She walked up to his office on the second floor and knocked on the door.

After a pause a short man, aged, bespectacled and balding, opened the door. At first Yevhen seemed disgruntled that someone had come knocking so late (officially he closed an hour before lockdown), but as soon as he realized who it was at the door his expression changed: first to happiness, then to concern when he saw the wound in her arm, still stuffed with dirty gauze. 'Viktoriya! Come in, come in. We must get that seen to immediately.' That was the way Yevhen was: business first, pleasantries second. He dragged her over to his examination bench (by her good arm, fortunately) and sat her down, then immediately started to work removing the gauze and investigating the damage. 'Well, I've seen worse, but this isn't something to be taken lightly. It's only a graze, but it's a deep one. Anyway, I'll clean it up.

Yevhen started pulling away the dirty gauze, then soaked a cloth in some sort of horrible-smelling medical liquid and dabbed the wound with it. It stung like hell, but Viktoriya gritted her teeth and sat through it. Once that was done he ran over to his cupboard, grabbed some more equipment, and then rushed back over to her and started applying fresh gauze and wrapping her arm in bandages. 'See, that wasn't so bad. I must say, you handled that better than most of the men I get in here.' Viktoriya couldn't help but smile at that. 'So anyway' Yevhen continued, 'tell me how this all happened.'

'I heard tell of a stash of artifacts, not far outside Duty. But by the time I got there some bandits had beaten me to it. There were only three, and I had the drop on them, but I guess one of them got a lucky shot off. I got them back though, and I got the artifacts.'

'Good. You'll need those to pay me' Yevhen said with a smirk. Viktoriya raised an eyebrow at him. 'I'm only kidding, dear! We're practically family; you know you don't need to pay me if you can't afford it.' Viktoriya knew that was true, but only partly. Yevhen's tell was that if he ever joked about needing the money it meant he actually did need the money. She picked up her backpack, fished out her last 2000 Rubles and put them in Yevhen's hand before he could object.

'Thank you, dear. Now, you can have one drink tonight to help with the pain, but drink plenty of water too. Oh, and one more thing…' Yevhen said as he ran back over to his supply closet, and then returned with a roll of clear plastic wrap. 'Wrap your arm up with that when you go in the shower, to stop the bandages from getting wet. Come back to me tomorrow and I'll change the bandages for you. And get at least a few days rest before you go off stalking again.'

'I can change the bandages just fine by myself. And I'm going to be bored out of my mind after a few days in this place' Viktoriya replied.

'Well I'm afraid that's too bad. I can lend you a book to read.'

'I've read all of your books three times over. Anyway, I'll figure something out. Thanks for your help'

'It was my pleasure dear. Ta-ta' Yevhen said as Viktoriya was walking out the door.

Viktoriya looked at her watch. 11:38pm. Sidrovich would have closed up for the night by now. Not that it mattered, the artifacts weren't going anywhere. She walked up the stairs to the fourth floor, where her room was. It was a small room, but by no means a bad one. She had a bed, a footlocker for her belongings, a desk with a wooden chair and her own en-suite bathroom (she presumed that this would have previously been an officer's quarters). There was also a reinforced lock on the door to stop anyone from trying to steal her things (although no-one would dare, since that would get you kicked out of here pretty easily). Her room was in the interior of the building, so there was no window, but the windows were all boarded up anyway to protect against blowouts.

Viktoriya unlocked the door, entered the room and went to her desk. Inside the drawer was a small bottle of painkillers. She opened it up, saw that there was only one left and swallowed it without water. She then immediately flopped back down on the bed. 'I had no idea I was this exhausted' she thought out loud. She laid there for a while but, while the painkiller seemed to be having some effect, the ache in her arm was strong enough to stop her from being able to sleep. 'I need a shower anyway' she thought.

After she'd showered and gotten the dirt out of her hair (she always kept it cut short to make that job easier) Viktoriya opened up her foot locker and retrieved a bottle of vodka and a glass. She usually saved her good vodka for special occasions, but she was too tired to go downstairs for a drink. She poured herself a single measure of vodka, drank it, had a mouthful of water from her canteen to chase it up, then poured another measure and drank that one too.

Viktoriya then went back to her foot locker and pulled out the one luxury item she'd brought with her to the zone, her MP3 player. She turned it on, put the earphones in and laid back down on the bed, scrolling through her music collection to find something that suited her mood while the warmth of the vodka slowly seeped through her veins and relaxed her muscles. She eventually decided she felt like listening to some metal (she felt the heavy sounds had a certain mental catharsis about them, which she liked after a hard day). She turned the music on, put her earphones in and stretched out on the bed, finally feeling calm and relaxed.

The next day, after she'd changed her bandages and had a quick breakfast of dry bread, sausage and cold instant coffee (the usual fare for Stalkers) Viktoriya went to see Sidrovich with her haul of artifacts from the previous day. She hadn't bothered to look through them to see what they were actually worth, but haggling with Sid was rarely worth the time. He was a nice enough man, and he ran a good business, but there was always something about him that unnerved her.

Viktoriya walked up to the counter of Sidrovich's trading post, set into the wall of the large common area on the ground floor. The common area was nothing fancy, just tables and chairs for Stalkers to drink, smoke and gamble at. It also served as an unofficial bar, since Sidrovich had plenty of vodka to sell. You had to get it before he closed at night, though.

Sidrovich gave Viktoriya the slightest little smile when he saw her approach. 'Good morning, miss' he said with a slightly annoyed expression, like she'd interrupted some important piece of work that he was doing (though he'd clearly just been sitting there not doing anything at all). He was short, dumpy old man with plenty of fat around the face and neck to match his sizeable beer gut. 'Looks like you've brought something to trade' he added, hungrily eyeing off the bag slung over her shoulder.

Viktoriya upended the bag on Sidrovich's counter, letting the bulky artifacts tumble out unceremoniously. They were heavy, but not likely to break; whatever magic the zone used to create them made them hard as diamonds (the way Sidrovich was looking at them they might as well be diamonds). 'Have a look' Viktoriya said. 'You'll know what they're worth, I suppose.'

'That I do, little miss' Sidrovich said as he began examining each artifact individually, apparently taking note of their weight, colour and (slight) radioactivity. Viktoriya waited as he worked his way through them, completely absorbed in his task for a few minutes. When he was done he moved the artifacts to one side and spoke to her. 'All in all, I can give you 7000 rubles.'

It was less than Viktoriya had hoped for, but not by a lot. 'Deal' she replied, 'but I've got to get a few things from you first.'

'Of course dear. What are you looking for?'

Viktoriya produced a list from her trouser-pocket. 'I need a medkit; some extra bandages to go with it; whatever tinned food you have; 9-by-19mil bullets (about 30); 5.45-by-39mil bullets (as many as you have); a flare gun; and a PSO-1 Scope to replace my busted one.'

Sidrovich walked around his various shelves, fetching what she'd asked for. He laid out everything on the counter: A medkit, a roll of bandages, ten cans of food (none of it was labelled, but she was at least reasonably certain it wasn't dog food), the flare gun (loaded with a flare), two 20-round boxes of 9x19mm ammo, three 30-round boxes of 5.45x39mm ammo and the scope, which he had placed to one side. 'Now, all of this' Sidrovich said, motioning over everything except the scope, 'will cost you 3500 rubles. The scope is 5000. So unless you've got an extra 1500 rubles this isn't going to work.'

'Shit.' Viktoriya had to think for a moment. Not having the scope was a fairly large hindrance, but everything else was absolutely necessary. She had no bullets, no food and no medical supplies left after her last journey out. Her scope being broken had all but turned that trip into an overall loss for her. 'Okay, give me everything else, and the rest of what you owe me in cash. The scope will have to wait.' Sidrovich replaced the scope on the shelf with the other weapon modifications, then slid the rest of her gear over and counted out the remaining 3500 rubles. 'Maybe I can win the rest by playing some poker tonight' she thought as she loaded her backpack with the new supplies. The idea didn't stick for long, though; she wasn't good enough to win reliably and she might need the rest of the money later on, especially if she was going to be on bed rest for the next few days. She said thanks to Sidorovich and went to leave, but he stopped her before she could.

'Before you go I have a job you might be interested in. A most unusual one, perfect for an artifact hunter like yourself'

'That depends, is it close by and will it buy me a scope?' she replied, somewhat put off by the idea of hunting artifacts (considering how poorly her last mission doing that had gone).

'It's not close by at all, but it will buy you ten new scopes.'

That had her attention. 'Go on' she said.

'I've got a client, just came in yesterday. He says he's a scientist. He wants someone to escort him to the plant. He'll pay handsomely.'

'THE plant? As in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant?' Sidorovich nodded in affirmation. 'It can't be done' she continued. 'In case you've forgotten, the brain scorcher won't let you get within, what, a few kilometres of the place?'

'That's the unusual part. This guy says he's got a way to get past the scorcher. Apparently him and his friends are interested in some of the machinery at the plant, some special computer thing they can't find anywhere else, so they cooked up something to get them in past the scorcher. He just needs a Stalker to get him there without being killed, which is where you come in. The official pay is 10000 rubles, half now and half on completion. But, considering that you'll be the first person to get into the plant since the incident you'll get to stuff your pockets with artifacts on the way home. He wants to leave for the plant tomorrow, so if you want the job I suggest you start getting your things ready.'

The dull ache in Viktoriya's arm was telling her that it was a bad idea to be going out on such a large mission so soon after she'd been injured, but the thought of finally getting into the plant was just too tempting for her to pass up. 'Okay, I'll take it' she said, after a long pause. 'Where's the client? I'll get that deposit off him and come back for the scope.'

'He's at that table over there' Sidorovich said, pointing to a lone man sitting in the far corner of the room, reading a book. 'I'm sure you two will make fast friends.'

Viktoriya collected her purchases, put them into her backpack and walked over to the man. He was absorbed in his book, and didn't see her approach. He was a young man. Younger than she was, at least. He was wearing what looked like good stalking gear; except that it was far too clean and not worn enough compared to what an experienced Stalker would be seen wearing. He looked tall and skinny, which suited his boy-ish facial features and short, messy brown hair. On his belt was a holster, containing a silenced Makarov pistol. On the floor by his side was a large, rather heavy looking backpack. '_Well, he looks like he might have his wits about him._' Viktoriya thought to herself.

Eventually the young man noticed her. He jumped in his chair just slightly, then regained himself and turned to address her. 'Hi, can I help you?' he asked, looking somewhat nervous.

'Sidorovich said you need someone to take you to the plant. I can do that.'

'I-uh-okay, great!' he stammered out. 'I'm Dimitri, by the way' he said, holding out his hand for her to shake.

'Viktoriya' she replied, accepting the handshake. '_This kid looks about as green as they get. He'll probably chicken out and bolt the instant bandits show up. Oh well, even if I don't get into the plant I'm getting easy cash from the mission_' she thought to herself. She looked him up and down. "I'm guessing this is your first time in the zone?"

'Yeah' he replied. 'I work for a research lab in Kiev. There are machinery parts and radiation monitors inside that plant that don't exist anywhere else, and we need to get them.'

'And you're sure they'll work after all this time?'

'Even if they don't, once we have the parts we can recreate them. A lot of the tech used to build that plant was kept top secret, so we don't have access to any plans or blueprints or anything.'

'Okay. That's not really important to me. I just need to keep you alive. Now let's have a look at this gear.' Viktoriya picked up his backpack and started going through it, while Dimitri looked on in surprise. She started pulling things out (clothes, water, food) and taking note of them. She stopped when she came across what appeared to be two camo-painted radiation suits and a metal remote control with a small display screen on it. 'What's this stuff?' she asked him.

'That's what we need to get past the scorcher. We each put on the protective suit, while I use the remote to calibrate the protection to work against the brain scorcher's frequencies. Our research assistant near the scorcher says that the power and frequencies vary as you move through the scorcher, so unless I can match our suits to it using the remote we'll both fry.'

'Okay. Anyway, your gear seems mostly in order. You need more food and water, and only bring one spare set of clothes. Where's your spare ammo?'

'I have one more magazine in my pocket' he replied.

'Not enough. Go to Sidorovich and buy a box of bullets. Better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.' Viktoriya gave him another look over, stopping when she saw that he was wearing jogging shoes. 'Are those seriously the shoes you're going to wear?'

'…Yeah? They're comfortable.'

Viktoriya shook her head. 'Those things will fall apart in half an hour out there. See these boots' she said, pointing to the boots she was wearing. 'These have lasted me five years. Go see if Sidorovich has any boots. Also, I need your deposit now.'

'Right, right' Dimitri said, pulling a folded envelope out of his jacket pocket. Viktoriya opened it and counted out the money. 5000 rubles, just as she'd expected.

'Okay, good. Go get your gear, then clean your gun and rest up for tomorrow. This place locks down from seven at night to five in the morning. Be here at five when the doors open, because that's when we're leaving. If we don't have any major problems we should be at the perimeter of the plant in 2 days.'

'Yep, okay' Dimitri said, then picked up his backpack and his book and left the room to go upstairs.

Viktoriya could see that he was nervous. '_So he should be_' she thought as she was walking away. Now that the introductions were over Viktoriya had to get started on her preparations for the mission. She went back to Sidorovich, spent the 5000 ruble deposit on the replacement scope for her AKS, and then went back upstairs to her room. The first thing she did once she was in her room was cleaning her rifle and Browning. This was always the first thing Viktoriya did when she needed to plan out a mission. She found that the process of disassembling, cleaning and reassembling her weapons allowed her to think much more clearly, and the cleaning act itself was somewhat calming.

One she'd cleaned both weapons top to bottom she began packing the gear she would need for the mission. Two days' worth of food (she couldn't carry enough for the full trip, but she'd be able to stock up at either Freedom or Duty along the way); a change of clothes; extra socks and underwear (important to change regularly); her remaining loose bullets after she'd reloaded her magazines, three one-litre water bottles, her weapon cleaning kits, her bedroll and her medical supplies. Once she was satisfied that she had everything she needed she set her pack to one side, ready to go in the morning.

The packing was completed, but Viktoriya still needed to finish preparing her weapons. She attached the new scope to her AKS, and then took it downstairs and outside to the firing range so she could center it.

Viktoriya got in a prone firing position at the range (providing the most support for her rifle), loaded a magazine, set the rifle to single fire mode, took aim and fired three rounds. The rifle was resting against her right shoulder, so the recoil from each round sent a bolt of pain up her arm. Fortunately it wasn't so bad that she couldn't keep firing, but in an actual firefight (possibly lasting several hours) it might pose a problem. When she went to check the target she saw that the rifle was firing significantly too high, and just a bit too left. She adjusted the scope and fired again, this time spot on the center of the target.

With the rifle zeroed properly she stood up and tried firing it normally to test her aim. She squeezed off five rounds, but before she even checked the target she knew that they'd landed all over the place. With her injured arm she was having a lot more trouble supporting the rifle. This was bad news for Viktoriya. '_If I can't fire my rifle properly I'm going to get myself killed' _she thought. But she'd already agreed to the job and, more importantly, spent the deposit, so it wasn't like she could just say sorry and back out. '_If I find good supported firing positions, and stick to my Browning as much as I can, I'll be fine.' _She knew it was a poor excuse, but she didn't really have any choice.

After she was done test firing and zeroing her scope Viktoriya thought about going to see Yevhen for more painkillers, but decided against it. She knew what he would say if he knew she would be going out for a mission this large without letting her injury heal, and she didn't want him to worry about her. The painkillers weren't really necessary, and she'd gotten all the important medical supplies she needed from Sidrovich. No, it was best that Yevhen didn't know about the whole mission.

With that idea pushed aside and all her equipment organized and ready to go, Viktoriya went back to her room to chill out and get a full nights' sleep, important final pieces of the mental and physical preparation she would need to see her through the coming days.

Viktoriya woke up at 4:40 the next morning. She got dressed in her usual stalking gear plus a warm overcoat (the weather in the zone was warmer than the rest of the country, but even then it would still be freezing this time of the morning); collected her backpack, handgun and AK; and grabbed a few pieces of slightly stale bread to eat on her way down the stairs.

Dimitri, to his credit, was on time and waiting in the common area when Viktoriya got there. The room was empty except for the two of them and one guard standing by the door, armed with an AK similar to Viktoriya's. Dimitri was dressed much the same as she was (including a pair of boots this time, though they looked well worn), had his backpack with him and was wearing his Makarov in a holster on his belt. 'You're a bit early. That's good. Did you get everything I told you to?' she asked him.

'Y-yeah, I think so. More food, more water, a box of ammo, one set of clothes. And a pair of boots. Th-that was everything, wasn't it?' Dimitri replied, almost visibly shaking (despite his coat and the heated interior of the building). He looked more nervous than she'd seen him the previous day, but that was to be expected.

'_He's probably never fired that Makarov. But still, he's done everything right so far, so he can't be that bad.' _Viktoriya thought, again knowing that it wasn't true. Rookies like him were notoriously unpredictable, and rubbish in a firefight. If it came to blows Viktoriya had to accept that she would be all on her own, and her injured arm wasn't buffing her confidence there. '_Great, we've got one-half of a decent gunman going on an excursion to the most dangerous place in the zone. What could possibly go wrong?' _But she was far beyond giving up now. Whatever the dangers ahead were, there was a strong possibility that this would be the once chance she would have to get close to, or possibly even inside, the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. That was the one place in the whole zone she hadn't searched yet, and therefore the one place she needed to go.

Viktoriya checked her watch: it was right on 5am. She walked up to the guard by the door and showed him the watch, and he began unlocking the deadbolts on the door. Once it was open the two of them stepped outside, through the open gate and started making their way to the Garbage, which was the first area they had to cross on their way to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.


	2. Chapter 2

Viktoriya and Dimitri had, after a few hours of walking, left the Agropom area and entered the Garbage. The Garbage, despite its distance from the plant and relative lack of threats from the zone (dangerous anomalies, mutants and other strange creatures), was not a nice place to find yourself. It was crawling with bandits: men who would shoot you in the head just to see if you had anything worth taking. And, fitting for its name the place always had a certain foul smell to it. "The stink of all the bandits we're going to kill", Stalkers liked to say.

The journey so far had been uneventful (which was considered a good thing in the zone). 'Okay, it's not far from here to the Duty outpost, but this area is full of bandits and anomalies so you need to keep your wits about you' Viktoriya said. 'Just follow my lead, look out for movement on the edge of your vision and let me know if you see anything. I'd rather you stop us for nothing than let a group of bandits get the drop on us because you didn't feel like speaking up.'

'Yeah, okay' Dimitri said. He still had that wild, anxious look in his eyes, like he was just waiting for something terrible to happen. Viktoriya was too, she just knew not to show it. It was her job to keep cool and collected and get this kid to the plant, the last thing he needed was another reason to panic.

They kept walking in silence for a while, until they came across the first patch of anomalies. The anomalies looked like floating bubbles of air, being constantly pulled and pushed at and reshaped by some invisible force. Viktoriya had walked through this area hundreds of times before, and could probably navigate it blindfolded if she needed to. Still, she had company with her this time, so she stopped to explain the situation to Dimitri. 'Okay, I'm guessing you saw these anomalies on your way to Sidrovich's, right?'

'Actually no, I came into the zone from the southern military cordon. I paid them to escort me up to Sidrovich's, and I guess we took a different path' Dimitri said, looking at the closest anomaly with fascination. 'I know what anomalies are; I just haven't seen one yet. Until now, I suppose.'

'Right, well just think of them as very big, very loud landmines that will tear you limb from limb if you get too close.'

'My team made the technology to get past the brain scorcher; I know plenty about what anomalies are.' Dimitri said with a hint of indignation, continuing on ahead of Viktoriya. 'This is just the first time I've personally been near one.'

'Well what I said still stands.' Viktoriya picked a rock up off the ground and threw it in front of Dimitri's path, where it exploded in a tiny fireball barely two feet in front of him. He froze on the spot, terrified of taking a step in any direction, while Viktoriya caught up to him. 'And since this apparently didn't show up in your research notes, some anomalies are invisible. Now stay behind me and don't wander off again. I don't feel like scooping your charred remains off the ground and picking through them to get my other five thousand rubles.'

Dimitri scurried along and stayed behind her, apparently having learned his lesson. They made it through the heaviest patch of anomalies without any more incidents, which put them on and old highway with not far to go until they hit the Duty outpost.

"Okay, the outpost for Duty is about two K's down this road." Viktoriya said, walking slightly faster than usual in anticipation of a nice rest. "I'm on good terms with the guys there, so we can rest up there before we continue on. If we make good time we'll be at Duty by mid-afternoon. Hell, we might even be able to push through to Freedom before night fall"

"Sorry, but what are 'Freedom' and 'Duty'? Are they more Stalkers?"

"Yeah, sort of. Basically Duty is all hung up on protecting the outside world from the zone, while Freedom are just in it for all the fun and adventure of getting shot by bandits and dying of radiation poisoning. Look, you'll find out more once we get there. They've got these loudspeakers running all the time, advertising themselves to the whole bloody zone. I don't know how any of them ever manage to sleep with those things going."

'Huh. Well it sounds like Duty are the smarter of the pair, then.' Dimitri said, struggling a bit to keep up with Viktoriya's pace.

'I wouldn't say that when we're passing though Freedom or you might find yourself with a fresh new hole in the back of your head. Besides, if love the idea of Duty so much you can join up. They're always looking for new fodder; even if they've clearly never fired a shot in their life'

'Hey, I've fired plenty of rounds out of this thing'

'Shut up' Viktoriya said, stopping in her tracks.

'No really, I have' Dimitri replied.

'No, I mean _shut up!' _Viktoriya said, dropping her voice to an agitated whisper. She dragged Dimitri over to a bush on the edge of the road, crouched behind it, lifted her rifle up to her shoulder and looked down the scope at the road ahead. About 100 metres ahead of where they were she could see an old roadside bus shelter. And leaning against the far wall of the shelter was a man, dressed in gear that was unidentifiable save for the balaclava he was wearing in the middle of the day, smoking a cigarette. 'There's a bandit up there. If there's one he'll have friends around, waiting for us.'

"How do you know he's a bandit?" Dimitri was straining his eyes trying to make out the masked individual.

"He's wearing a balaclava. It's way too hot right now to need one, so he must be doing it to disguise his identity." Viktoriya looked back down her rifle scope. The shelter was walled on her side, blocking most of her view into it, but she figured there would be another two or three bandits around (at least). She lowered the scope and surveyed their surroundings. To their left was a thicket of brush and small trees which would ordinarily make for good concealment but, as Viktoriya knew from her experience with the area, were concealing more anomalies than they had time to navigate. To their right was an open field down a steep slope, with no cover except a small farmhouse about 80 metres to their two o'clock.

"Okay, this isn't a great spot for us." Viktoriya said. "I'd say there's three of them in the shelter, plus another one taking cover up in those trees. Down where they are there's less anomalies."

"So what do we do now?" Dimitri had that nervous look in his eyes again.

"I don't know." Ordinarily she would just creep into the trees and shoot the bandit in the open, scattering the others in the panic. But, with her injured arm and her poor performance at the range the previous day, her chances of making a shot from 100m were fairly slim. If she missed there was a strong chance they would be spotted, at which point the bandits would flank around them and cut them both down using the slope on the other side of the road as cover.

"Can't we just bribe them to let us through? I have more money on me" Dimitri asked.

"Why would they take your money when they can just put a bullet in your head and take that plus everything else you've got?" Viktoriya had another look down her scope at the bus shelter. The bandit was still standing there. He'd finished his cigarette, but not taken any notice of the pair of them. "Okay, they haven't spotted us yet. Look, I can only see one way through this that might not get us in a gunfight. We'll climb down the slope and go around that way. If they don't spot us we can arc around them and rejoin the road up ahead."

"And if they do spot us?"

"Then we'll sprint for that farmhouse and take cover in it. Now follow me." Viktoriya didn't waste any time in moving to the side of the road, keeping a low profile as she went, and sliding down the embankment. It was only about ten metres down, but when Dimitri followed her he still managed to trip up and land face-first at the bottom. Viktoriya resisted the urge to say something snarky, instead helping him up and starting towards the farmhouse, keeping a firm watch on the bus shelter as they went.

They were about halfway to the house when Viktoriya heard a loud 'AAH' behind her. She turned around to see Dimitri frantically scanning the ground around his feet, his pistol drawn.

She walked up to him and grabbed his shirt front. 'What the hell is your problem!?' she asked in an angry whisper through clenched teeth.

"I felt something brush against my leg; I thought it was a snake." He was visibly shaking.

"Well next time you imagine something keep your damn voice down. I don't want the-" Viktoriya was cut off by a loud gunshot, followed immediately by a bullet hitting the ground a few feet away.

"GODDAMN IT! RUN!" Viktoriya turned around and ran straight for the farm house. As she approached she saw a wooden side door straight ahead of her. She readied her shoulder to barge the door down but, just a second too late, forgot about her injured arm. She impacted the door with a loud, satisfying CRACK of splitting wood, as well as a flash of white in her vision as her arm screamed in protest at the decision she'd just made.

Fortunately the door was flimsy and rotted away, so the impact was only painful and not damaging. From what she could tell the house was abandoned; there were no lights or sounds coming from further in the house and there was a dank, musty smell rising from the floorboards.

Once she'd regained herself from the collision Viktoriya took up position at a broken window facing the bus shelter, while Dimitri came hurtling through the door beside her. Sure enough, there were three men, each armed with rifles and wearing balaclavas, advancing on them. Viktoriya knelt down rested her rifle on the windowsill to steady her aim. She looked down the scope, took aim at the bandit on the right, breathed out and squeezed the trigger. The shot hit in the chest, and the bandit toppled over before he took another step.

The other two bandits raised their rifles and started firing. The shots were erratic, as they were trying to move and fire at the same time, but Viktoriya laid down on the floor just in case. "_Doesn't matter how inaccurate they are, they only need to hit once" _she thought, remembering what she'd been taught during her army training. She waited until their bursts had finished, then took up her position again. They were sprinting towards the house now, but still had some ground to cover. Viktoriya flicked her fire selector from single to automatic, took aim a bit ahead of the mid-section of the bandit on the left and fired a three-round burst. The first round missed, the second hit on the right-side of the chest as the recoil pushed the muzzle upwards, and the third was a perfect headshot.

The last bandit, to Viktoriya's surprise, was still running towards the house. "Strange, the last one usually runs" she muttered to herself. She tried to take him out with another three-round burst but the bandit was too close to the house, meaning she couldn't turn her rifle far enough to cross his path. She looked to her left. The door to the house was still wide open, with Dimitri crouched down against it, and if they stayed where they were they would be dead in the open when the bandit came around the corner. The kitchen was to their right, separated from the rest of the house and with no furniture that could be used for cover. To the left of the door was a hallway. Viktoriya dropped her rifle on the floor where she was (she didn't need to worry about the bandit using it, since he already had one of his own), stood up, grabbed Dimitri and quickly dragged him down the hallway and around the corner into cover. She then took out her Browning, cocked it and held it up, pressing herself against the wall ready to fire out into the hallway when the bandit appeared.

The room they were in now, considering the dusty lounge chair and broken television set, was probably the living room. There was a window in the living room, unbroken, and to the right of where they'd entered (directly in front of where Viktoriya was now standing) was another short hallway that, presumably, led to the bedrooms. If it weren't for Dimitri's loud, panicked breathing as he crouched on the floor behind Viktoriya everything in the house would have been deathly quiet. She nudged him with her foot to get his attention. When he looked up at her she cocked her head in the direction of the window, trying to signal him to watch it in case the bandit came around the house. He didn't get the message, however, and just sat where he was.

Viktoriya was about to pick Dimitri up again and drag him over to the window when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway. She held her position, flat against the wall, waiting. The footsteps grew closer, and closer. At the last second she poked her Browning around the corner and fired five shots at stomach height. She heard a groan, followed by a dull thud as the bandit dropped. She poked her head around the corner to make sure he was truly down, and he was. His rifle had fallen from his hands, and he was lying in a slowly-expanding pool of scarlet blood. Viktoriya walked over to him, pushed his rifle away with her foot, and was about to finish him off when Dimitri stopped her.

"Wait, he's still alive! Shouldn't we help him?" His eyes flicked back and forth between her, the bandit and the gun pointed at the bandit's head.

"No, stupid!" Viktoriya snapped back, becoming thoroughly tired of the scientist. "These guys would have killed us both without another thought if I hadn't stopped them. I'm just returning the favour."

"But what if he has a family? He could have a wife and kids. We don't know anything about him."

"What we know is that we're in the freakin' Zone! Do you see any families around here? Any wives and children? This guy wasn't stealing bread to feed his starving kids; he was going to murder us and scavenge everything he could off our corpses just because he could. Bandits are the scum of the Zone. They're worse than dogs or boars or zombies or the goddamn power plant itself! They don't deserve our time, our bandages or our pity." To illustrate her point Viktoriya shot the moaning bandit in the head before Dimitri had a chance to reply. "Now shut it with your bleeding-heart crap and let's move" she concluded, before walking down the hallway and back outside, letting Dimitri catch up of his own accord.

They spent the next few hours in silence as they made their way back to the road, past the Duty outpost (stopping for a rest there) and into the forest that lead to Duty Headquarters. A couple of times Viktoriya felt that she should apologize for the way she'd talked to Dimitri, since he was new to the zone and had never dealt with bandits before, but decided against it. It wasn't until they were most of the way through the forest, about half a kilometer from their destination, that Dimitri broke the silence.

"Hey" he said. "I'm sorry for what happened back there. The whole fight was my fault. If I hadn't screamed the bandits never would have seen us and none of it would have happened."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sorry I yelled at you like that. You're not a Stalker; you couldn't have known what the bandits are really like. You have to know that every dead bandit is a good thing. They can't be bargained with or reasoned with or anything. You either avoid them or you take them out." Viktoriya felt a little better for having gotten that off her chest.

Dimitri wasn't satisfied. "But they're people, aren't they? Surely there's something you could do? How could people living in conditions like this want to harm and kill each other instead of working together to live better?"

"I don't know" Viktoriya replied. "Why do people choose to live here in the zone instead of staying outside with their friends and family, not fighting for survival every day?"

"Don't ask me, I'm not a Stalker. Why do you?"

Viktoriya stopped walking suddenly, grabbing Dimitri's hand to stop him too. 'I think I heard something' she said. It sounded like rustling leaves and branches, with no discernable origin for the sound. Probably dogs, since it sounded like there was more than one of them. Dimitri snapped his mouth shut and made a point of keeping it shut, in case something scared him (having learned his lesson earlier), while Viktoriya drew her Browning (but held off on cocking it, to avoid making any unnecessary noises). Dimitri saw this and did the same with his Makarov. She looked around, but couldn't see anything. 'Okay, just stay calm' she said, in a low whisper. 'We're not far from Duty headquarters. If we more carefully and quietly we can probably sneak past whatever this is.'

Dimitri nodded and they kept walking, being careful not to step on anything that would create a noise. They could still hear the rustling branches, but weren't sure where the noise was coming from. But then, to the surprise and horror of both of them, two boars emerged from the trees behind them. They hadn't taken notice of the pair yet, though, so there was still a chance for them to escape.

'Just keep walking, no sudden moves' Viktoriya said in the lowest whisper she could manage. Dimitri nodded, his face riddled with fear. Viktoriya crouched over as she walked to keep her profile as low as possible. Dimitri saw this and copied it. They walked like this for about twenty metres, Viktoriya checking over her shoulder every few steps, when one of the boars finally noticed their movement.

One of the boars made a throaty grunt which alerted the other one, and they both started charging. 'Shit, run!' she yelled, breaking into a sprint as Dimitri regained his footing and followed her. If there had only been one she would have drawn her AKS and tried to take it down, but trying to kill one when there's another bearing down on her would be all but impossible. Viktoriya broke off to the left of Dimitri a bit, to make it harder for the boars to track them both down, but she could hear them gaining ground quickly.

The forest ran out quickly, giving way to a wide clearing with a cluster of large buildings not very far ahead (Viktoriya judged it to be about 200 metres away).That, she knew, made up Duty headquarters. She kept running as fast as her legs could carry her, while Dimitri kept up (surprising well for a guy who spends all day in a lab). There was another building, a large warehouse with a steel sliding door at the front, about 100 metres ahead of Duty. That building was the closest to them, and therefore their best bet for survival, so Viktoriya beelined for it and Dimitri followed her. The boars were still hot on their tails, gaining ground every second. '_If that place is locked up we're done for, but there are no other options. We won't make it to Duty before these things are on top of us' _Viktoriya thought to herself.

They reached the building and, seeing that there were no other doors on their side of the building and a fence blocking clear access to the other sides, Viktoriya immediately started pushing open the large sliding door in front of her. It was horribly heavy, and extremely painful for her injured arm, but when Dimitri caught up and started pushing it with her they were able to get it open just enough for them to slide in one at a time and leave the boars outside. Viktoriya pushed the door closed again and collapsed on the floor, panting, while the two boars outside made angry noises and butted their heads against the door.

They were in what appeared to be a storage shed for large trucks. The only light source was a set of skylights in the roof, but the overcast weather meant the room was mostly dark. The area they were in was empty except for a stack of metal barrels near the wall to the right of the door they entered through. To the left of the entrance was an open doorway and some windows looking into what looked like small office rooms. The place seemed to be empty, so Viktoriya dropped her pack and her AKS and allowed herself to relax for a moment. 'Okay, we should be safe here.' She checked her watch: 4:23pm. 'We've got a couple of hours of sunlight left, so we can afford to wait here until the boars lose interest and hike it.'

Dimitri sniggered. 'Oh, so we sit here until they get … boar-d.'

Viktoriya, despite all the horrible situations that man had put her through, couldn't help but laugh at Dimitri's horrifically bad pun. She was completely knocked off guard and found herself bent double with laughter. After a moment she regained her composure, while Dimitri sat on the ground with a stupid grin that gave the impression he was very pleased with himself at the moment.

'Goddamnit, where was I? We'll wait up here for a while, then head over to Duty. I know a few people there, so we shouldn't have any trouble getting access to the bar.

Viktoriya started pacing back and forth a bit to stretch out her legs after the boar chase (waking up sore and stiff the next morning was not something she intended to do) while Dimitri sat on the ground, undid his pack and started drinking from one of his bottles. They had only been there a few minutes when Viktoriya caught movement in the corner of her eye. She whirled around to face the open doorway near the windows and saw a light coming through the door that hadn't been there before, like a distant flashlight that was getting closer. She turned back around and ran towards the barrels near the far wall, the only cover in the room. Dimitri, seeing her distress, did the same. '_Well, he's learning at least' _she thought to herself.

She carefully peeked out around the side of the barrels to try and see who was coming, or get an idea of if they'd seen them or not. She saw that the person had entered the room now, and was shining his light at their packs on the ground. '_Well, he knows we're here.' _She had to suppress an expletive when she noticed that she'd left her AKS on top of her pack. In the dim light she couldn't make out what the man was wearing, or if he had a Duty patch on. '_We're not that close to Duty, this guy could be a bandit.' _Viktoriya drew her Browning and carefully pulled the hammer down, readying herself to cock it and start firing if things went south. He was out in the open, and she knew she could put him down if need be, but if this guy was Duty (which was quite possible) then that would mean them being put to a firing squad rather than given food and a warm bed.

Viktoriya weighed up her options. The guy knew they were there, and that they were hiding from him. Assuming he was Duty, he would probably figure that they were either Stalkers or bandits. If he was a bandit he'd be opening fire on them regardless. The way he was jerking his rifle around looking for them suggested that he probably wasn't confident in his own safety. '_Screw it. I need to break the ice now or this is just going to end badly.' _Viktoriya cleared her throat and called out from behind the barrels 'Are you Duty?'

Her question was answered with three sharp _cracks_ from the man's rifle, the bullets pinging into the barrels at the centre of the stack, followed by footsteps retreating and a call of 'guys, we've got intruders!' down the hallway.

Viktoriya turned to Dimitri. 'Okay, these guys are bandits. Get ready for a fight.'

Dimitri looked scared, but not as much as the previous time (but that might've been a trick of the poor lighting). 'I thought this was Duty territory? How would bandits even get here without being noticed?'

'I don't know. It's not important right now. The important thing is that a Duty soldier would've known we were Stalkers by the fact that we called out instead of just dropping him. Which means him and his friends are bandits.'

Viktoriya looked out into the room. The door to the hallway on the far side of the room looked like it was about fifty metres away, but the darkness could be hindering her estimate. As tempting as it was to cross the room, pick up her AKS along the way, set up next to the door and blind-fire into the narrow hallway when they all come running down, there was too much chance they would beat her to it and catch her out in the open. She had Dimitri for covering fire, but at that distance and with the low light he was just as likely to hit her instead of a bandit.

'Okay, we'll just have to try and take these guys out' Viktoriya said. 'Be conservative with your ammo, try to draw them ou-' she was cut off by gunshots coming at them from the hallway, again pinging into the barrels at the centre of the stack (well clear of either Viktoriya or Dimitri). She poked her head out to try and see how many guys they were up against. There were at least five, all armed with rifles. It was still too dark to see what kind of clothes they were wearing. She poked her Browning out from behind the barrels and fired a couple of rounds, hoping to spook them into retreating a bit.

It didn't work. At the shots all of the bandits opened fire on the barrels. Fortunately for them the barrels seemed solid, and only maybe one round in five was penetrating. Viktoriya had only one spare magazine, meaning she would need to aim carefully to conserve ammo, but the hail of bullets was far too heavy and consistent for her to lean over and take a good shot. '_They're staggering their fire properly, not giving us a chance to return. These guys are a cut above the usual bandits' _she thought.

The bandits were closing in on them, working their way around the sides of the room to neutralize the cover the barrels were providing them. The pair were nearly exposed when Viktoriya head a voice shouting over the hail of bullets: 'Okay…men, keep firing… kill these bandits… back to Duty.' Though she could barely make out a word he said, she definitely heard him mention Duty.

Viktoriya shouted as loud as she could to penetrate the sound of the gunfight: 'HEY, WE'RE NOT BANDITS!' The fire continued, so she tried again: 'WE'RE NOT BANDITS!' She was just about to shout again when the same voice form before gave a loud 'CEASEFIRE' order. Viktoriya put the safety on her gun, placed it down and pushed it across the floor, then stood with her hands behind her head and stepped out into the open. There was still a chance these guys weren't happy with them, and she wanted to give them every reason she could to not vaporize them. Dimitri followed her lead and stepped out into the open.

The same voice, a man who was presumably the leader of this group, began to instruct them. 'Okay, you two just stay where you are. We'll decide what t- is that you, Viktoriya?' The man stepped closer to get a better look at her, his flashlight dazzling her eyes. 'It is you! What are you doing here? And why did you fire at us?'

She saw the Duty tag on his chest and finally figured out who it was from his voice. 'Pasternack' she addressed him. He was a Duty officer whose nights off always seemed to coincide with her nights at the bar. He was nice enough, and he always bought her a round when she saw him, but he would always inevitably try to convince her to join the Duty faction. 'We were chased into here by a pair of boars. When you scout showed up I tried talking to him, but he shot at us instead, so we thought you were bandits.'

'Is that so? Don't worry, he'll be disciplined. I didn't join Duty to kill good Stalkers. Speaking of joining Duty…'

'Please, before you go any further we're both very tired and hungry. Would it be any trouble to you if we continued this conversation later at the bar?'

'Not at all. You head on up there, I'll join you and your friend later. I think we'd best step outside to investigate these boars. They don't normally slip past the outpost that easily. You can get out through that hallway we came in by. That way takes you between the buildings; it's all been cleared out.' Pasternack turned to his man. 'Okay, five minutes to reload your mags and check your weapons, then we move out.'

Viktoriya retrieved her gun from the ground behind her, then her rifle and backpack. Dimitri did the same. He seemed a bit shaken, but otherwise he looked well. 'Hey, you did well back there' she told him.

'I didn't even fire a single shot' he replied, appearing unconvinced by her praise.

'Yeah, and that's a good thing. If you'd hit one of them we'd both be dead by now. But you sat there, you followed my lead and kept your cool. You keep that up and we won't be having any more problems like before.'

'I suppose you're right. Thanks' he replied, the colour returning to his cheeks a bit.

'No problem. Now, let's hurry up and get to the bar. After all of that I could really use a drink.'


	3. Chapter 3

Viktoriya and Dimitri stepped into the 100 Rads Bar. This was a place Viktoriya had been to many times before, as it was a popular hangout for Stalkers and Duty soldiers alike. It also served as a trading post. The barkeep (conveniently known as 'Barkeep') was able to provide a wide selection of weapons, ammo and medical supplies as well as tinned food and vodka to wash it down.

The pair each pulled up a stool in front of the bar. Barkeep came over and greeted them. 'Hello Viktoriya. Just your usual tonight?' he asked.

'It's a double order tonight. In fact, better just give us a half-bottle; it's been a long day. We'll need a couple of beds as well and some food as well' Viktoriya replied while placing some notes on the bench.

'Coming right up.' He reached under the counter and grabbed a couple of glasses, placed them on the counter, then turned around to grab a bottle of clear liquid from a display of several identical bottles. It was labelled 'Khortytsa Platinum,' a name Dimitri recognized.

'Wow, I haven't had this stuff in a while' he said, smiling.

'Don't get your hopes up, they just re-use the old vodka bottles.' Viktoriya poured a double measure into each glass. 'This stuff is really just moonshine watered down a bit, not that anybody here really cares.' She picked up her glass and downed the liquid in one clean gulp. The liquid stung her dry mouth and burned all the way down to her stomach, but she reveled in the feeling.

Dimitri picked up in glass and sniffed the clear liquid (it had no discernable smell), hesitant to drink it. He closed his eyes and drank the glass in one mouthful, just as Viktoriya had done. He immediately regretted the decision, finding himself bent double on his stool, coughing his lungs out.

'Hey, if you throw up you're cleaning up!' barkeep said, eliciting a laugh from Viktoriya.

Dimitri eventually regained his composure. 'Oh god, another one of those and I'm not gonna have a throat left' he said in a slight wheeze.

'Good' Viktoriya replied. 'Then next time you see a snake you won't get us shot at by bandits.' She laughed at her joke, but Dimitri didn't. "Oh I'm sorry. And hey, you did a lot better the second time around." She poured them each a single measure of alcohol from the bottle.

'Yeah, but I'm still nowhere near your level.' Dimitri said as he drank his glass. The smaller drink went down a bit easier.

'Well, I've been doing this for a good five years now. That plus three years in the army.'

'Wow. What was the army like?'

"It's not bad, once you get past basic training. But then basic is mostly just getting yelled at. We had this one Sergeant named Lauder who was always going on about helmets. No matter where you were or what time it was, if you listened hard enough you could hear him somewhere on base yelling 'Put your damn helmet on, Rookie!'" They both started laughing at her impression, while she began to realize that the alcohol must have been hitting her harder than she'd expected. _"Ugh, should've eaten something first" _she thought.

When the laughter died down Dimitri spoke up again. 'So why did you leave the army to become a Stalker?'

Viktoriya hesitated. That was a question she didn't get asked very often, and one she wasn't fond of answering. However, she'd been dodging it up until now, and the alcohol had worn down her resistance a little. She took a deep breath and began to speak.

"Do you know where the term 'Stalker' came from?" Dimitri shook his head. "It was the name given to people who would come to the exclusion zone and go scavenging. This is before the second incident, back when the zone was just boring old radiation and nothing else. My father was one of those Stalkers. He'd lived his whole life in Pripyat before the first incident at the Plant. Anyway, after the first incident we all had to evacuate. I was only young at the time, and my mother and I liked Kiev better anyway. But my father never settled properly, and he would take every chance he got to sneak back into the exclusion zone. He wasn't looking for anything, and he never brought anything home with him. He just couldn't stay away from the city he'd lived in his entire life."

"This went on for years; decades, in fact. Then the second incident happened: the one that turned the zone into what it is today. He was in the zone when it happened. Neither I nor my mother ever heard from him again. He simply vanished. My mother was inconsolable. I don't think it would have been as bad if he'd hit by a truck or something; it was just not knowing what had happened that made it so difficult for her. I asked the military if they would look for him, but they didn't find anything. As soon as I came of age I joined the military myself, hoping to get posted to the cordon. I was, but it wasn't like I could just wander off and go looking for him. So as soon as I finished my minimum service requirement I handed in my uniform, bought a new rifle and a pair of boots and snuck back in myself."

"My mother had drunk herself to an early grave long before I left the army. Which meant it was only Dad left. I know he's not alive. Of course he's not, how does someone go eight years missing in the most dangerous place on earth and turn up alive one day? But still, I just need to find some evidence of what really happened to him, so that I'll know. If I find anything it'll be his skeleton. I know I should just give up and leave, restart my life on the other side of the cordon. But every time I think about leaving I see his face in my mind, and then I just can't. I've combed the entire zone looking for some trace of him, but I haven't found anything. I figure if I'm going to find anything it'll be somewhere past the brain scorcher, because that's the only place I haven't looked yet; which is why I agreed to this job when I've got a fresh bullet wound in my arm and I can barely hold my rifle steady."

Dimitri was silent for a moment. "Oh my god. I had no idea."

Viktoriya gave him a weak smile in return. "Don't worry about it. Ugh, I've already had way too much to drink. I think we'd better stop here. We'll be getting up early again tomorrow." Viktoriya went to hand back the nearly empty vodka bottle, but paused when she noticed the food she'd ordered (A plain brown stew that likely contained dog meat) had been placed in front of her while she'd been telling her story. Her drunken, somber mood had robbed her of most of her appetite, but she forced the stew down regardless (she knew she would need the energy in the morning). Dimitri did the same, not appearing to enjoy the meal any more than she did.

After they'd finished eating the two were preparing to leave when Pasternack entered the bar and walked up to them. "Ah, Viktoriya. Fancy seeing you here" he said with a cocky smile.

"If you'll recall, I told you we would be here tonight. That was barely two hours ago." To Viktoriya Pasternack was nothing more than an annoying creep and an idiot, but he held a little too much influence as a Duty officer for her to simply tell him to fuck off. She would usually let him buy her a drink or two and try to drown out his constant urging her to join Duty, but this time she felt she'd put up with enough crap for one day. "Anyway, my friend and I were just about to leave. We have to be up early tomorrow to continue our trek north" she said, standing from her stool.

"If you're heading north then you'll want to stay and hear my news. Barkeep, two- erm… three drinks."

Viktoriya hesitated for a moment, and then sat back down. "Now, what is this news that's so important to us?"

"Well I'm afraid it isn't good. The fighting between us and those bastards at Freedom has been a lot worse than usual lately. In fact, we've had to completely close off the road to the north to eliminate the possibility of anyone taking supplies or information to the enemy. No Stalkers allowed through the gate, except on official Duty business."

That was not what Viktoriya had wanted to hear. She didn't know of any other roads that took them that way. It was possible that they could swing through Yantar and cut a path north through the woods, but they simply didn't have the time, resources or luck to fight their way through an onslaught of snorks and zombies. "So you're telling me there's no way for us to get through at all?"

"I'm afraid so; the orders came from the general himself. You know, ordinarily I'd pull some strings to get you through, but this embargo is being enforced far too tightly. If I tried anything they'd assume you were paying me off, one way or another." The smirk he gave her then made Viktoriya want to knock his teeth out, but she resisted.

"Well, this is just fantastic. Do you have any idea when the closure will end?"

"It's been a fortnight now, already the longest one we've ever had, but there's no end in sight. Knowing the way these things usually progress, I would say another two weeks. But unless you can think of a way to make every Freedom member drop their rifles and leave the zone I doubt there's much you can do to hurry it along."

Viktoriya sighed in exasperation. "Well then, I guess we're stuck here for the next fortnight. We may as well have a few more drinks, Dimitri; no need to get up early tomorrow, after all."

Dimitri, who'd been silent for the conversation between Viktoriya and Pasternack, suddenly piped up. "We can't afford to wait that long, Viktoriya. The equipment I need is necessary to some very vital, very time sensitive experiments. If I'm not back in Kiev within the next ten days this whole mission will have been for naught."

Viktoriya had half raised her drink to her lips, but placed it back down when Dimitri had finished talking. "So what do you suggest we do, then? Do you want us to both sign up for a 2-year stint with Duty?"

"Well, you could-" Pasternack started.

"Oh, shut up" Viktoriya snapped at him before he could finish.

They sat in silence for a moment, before Dimitri spoke again. "You said no Stalkers are allowed through except on Duty business, right? Do you have any jobs we could do that would have us going north?"

Pasternack thought for a second before responding. "Well, there is one. We already have a couple of Stalkers lined up for it, but if you were willing to undercut them on the payment I don't think any of the higher-ups would take issue with the change."

"Alright, whatever it is we'll take it" Viktoriya said, stifling a yawn as she did. Her tiredness from the long day had caught up to her now, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl upstairs and climb into her bed. But, for the sake of the mission (the mission she was thoroughly regretting agreeing to), she forced herself to stay put and hear the details of Pasternack's job.

"Excellent. The job is a prisoner exchange. Fairly simple, just escort the Freedom prisoner up the road north to the entrance of the warehouses area, about a kilometer back from the first T-intersection. There you'll meet two other Stalkers with a Duty prisoner; you swap and escort our Duty soldier back. Simple as can be. We've managed to agree on using Stalkers for the escort to minimize the chance that there will be another… incident."

"*Another* incident?"

"Yes, the last time we attempted an exchange it was all fireworks. We agreed that using Stalkers should work better, because they're less likely to risk their own necks shooting up the place for a faction they don't even belong to."

"Okay, I suppose that makes sense." Viktoriya was skeptical about just how smoothly this job could possibly go, but she didn't see any way around it now.

"Great. Meet me at the north gate at midday; I'll have the prisoner waiting. You'll receive your payment once we get our soldier back here safely. Anyway, big day tomorrow, so I'm going to call it a night." Pasternack paid for his drink and left the bar, leaving Viktoriya and Dimitri alone to mull over the job they'd agreed to. They sat in silence for a while, polishing off their drinks, then each went upstairs to their respective rooms.

The room Viktoriya had was small and simple, but comfortable enough. Once she was alone she changed into her spare set of underclothes, took a large drink of water and secreted her dagger underneath her pillow. She then climbed into the creaky old bed and fell asleep without any difficulty.

Viktoriya awoke the next morning with a dry mouth and a slight headache, but nothing too serious. The time on her watch read 7:38. "Ugh, I'm too used to waking up early" she thought, as she got up out of the bed and got dressed. She found Dimitri downstairs at the bar, reading a book and eating a breakfast of dry bread and coffee. Viktoriya ordered the same (the coffee was horrible, but it perked her up a bit nonetheless). The place was nearly as full as it had been the night before, presumably all Duty soldiers who weren't needed at the time and Stalkers who were waiting for the north gate closure to end for one reason or another. They had a few hours to kill before they needed to be at the north gate, so they played some cards with the other Stalkers (friendly games without cash involved, which was good because Dimitri was rubbish and Viktoriya was only marginally better) to pass the time.

They arrived at the gate a few minutes early to find Pasternack waiting for them, with the prisoner in tow. He was wearing Stalking gear like you would find on anyone else in the zone, except that his coat was emblazoned with the Freedom emblem. His hands were tied behind his back, and he smelled like he hadn't been allowed a shower in some time.

Pasternack smiled at them. "Okay, you know the drill. Take the prisoner up to the exchange point, swap them out and bring our guy home. Here's a picture of the prisoner we'll be receiving:" he showed them a mugshot of a young man, with short blonde hair, blue eyes and a slightly bent nose. He then turned to Dimitri. "You, where's your rifle?"

"Um, I don't have one. I just have this:" he pulled out his Makarov to show Pasternack.

"Hmm, that won't do. Here, take this." He handed Dimitri the rifle he was holding, a Duty standard issue AKM.

Dimitri hefted the rifle in his hands, surprised by how heavy it was. "Thanks, but I don't know how to use one of these things."

"You've never used a rifle before? How have you possibly made it this far into the zone with just that puny Makarov"

"Well, he's been with me the whole time" Viktoriya said.

"Ah, well that explains it. Anyway, the rifle is just for show. The two Stalkers working for Freedom will definitely have rifles, and if they see that it's two rifles to one they might decide to try something funny. We're expecting a smooth outcome here, so if luck is with us you won't need to fire a single shot."

Dimitri was still uncertain, but he didn't argue further. He and Viktoriya stood on either side of the prisoner and walked him through the gate and onto the road that separated the Duty headquarters from the Freedom headquarters. It wasn't far to walk, only a couple of kilometres, but they had to walk slower to accommodate their prisoner. The path was all but empty of any notable hills or vegetation. There were a few patches of anomalies, but navigating them wasn't difficult.

They arrived at the exchange point at around 1:30pm, to find their counterpart trio waiting for them: two Stalkers with assault rifles on either side of the Duty prisoner, who had a balaclava over his head and his hands behind his back. They had stopped about fifteen metres away from each other when one of the other Stalkers called out to them. "Okay, we send each of our guys over at the same time, then we just walk back the way we came. Alright?"

Viktoriya had never performed a prisoner exchange before, nor had it come up during her time in the military, but based on what she'd seen in films that sounded like the right way to do it. However, the fact that their prisoner had a balaclava on was bugging her. "Take off his balaclava. We need to know that he's the right guy" she yelled back.

"What?" the other Stalker replied. "It's him, okay. We don't have time for this, let's just do the exchange!"

That was a massive red flag for Viktoriya. "I said take his balaclava off!" She could see their Freedom prisoner fidgeting in the corner of her vision, but she needed to keep an eye on the guys with rifles in front of her.

The other two Stalkers raised their rifles and pointed them at Viktoriya and Dimitri. Viktoriya raised her rifle, and Dimitri followed her lead. "Don't worry" she said to Dimitri, quietly. "They won't fire while we've got their prisoner, in case they hit him instead of us."

"Okay, let's settle down!" one of the other Stalkers yelled. "We'll send your guy halfway, then he can take his balaclava off and you'll see it's him. Then you send our guy halfway, and then they each walk the rest of the way. Agreed?"

It still smelled rotten to Viktoriya, but she couldn't see another way of doing it, and she definitely didn't want to return to Pasternack empty-handed. "Agreed!" she yelled back.

The Duty prisoner walked slowly towards them, until he was roughly halfway between the two groups. He removed one hand from behind his back ('He wasn't tied up?' Viktoriya thought) and reached up to remove his balaclava. However, just as his hand reached his head the Freedom soldier next to Viktoriya gave the slightest nod, and he instead removed a pistol from behind his back with his other hand a pointed it straight at Dimitri. Viktoriya pointed her rifle at the man (who presumably was not actually the prisoner), but before she could fire she felt a cold, hard object being pressed against the side of her head. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the Freedom prisoner holding a gun to her. Viktoriya slowly took her hand off the trigger, flipped on the safety and placed her rifle on the ground, while Dimitri did the same.

The man in the balaclava walked up to Viktoriya, now pointing his gun at her. He took her sidearm and her knife, then picked up her rifle and handed it to the Freedom prisoner. "Wow, I can't believe Duty were stupid enough to fall for that whole 'using Stalkers instead' play" he said. "We were just going to shoot you two, but when we saw that this one-" he gestured towards Dimitri "couldn't even hold his rifle properly we figured we'd save ourselves the trouble."

The Freedom prisoner they'd been escorting laughed. "These Duty amateurs can't even tie knots properly." Now that the gun was away from her head Viktoriya saw that it was Dimitri's Makarov, which the prisoner must have snatched from his holster after he undid his binds.

"So what's going to happen to us now, then?" Viktoriya asked.

"We'll take you back to Freedom for now, and let one of the officers decide what he wants to do with you. It's not really my place to say. Anyway, walk in a single file line, and don't make any sudden moves."

And so they set off towards Freedom headquarters, with Viktoriya and Dimitri between the four soldiers. Dimitri spoke after a short while. "Hey, that wasn't my fault back there, was it?"

"No. No, you did well. Thanks for not firing; they would've cut us down if you had."

"I was actually trying to fire, but the safety on the rifle must've still been switched on."

They walked the rest of the way in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

Viktoriya and Dimitri were led through the gate to the once-abandoned army base that was now Freedom Headquarters. The Freedom soldiers on the base, who were normally seen milling around, smoking and chatting among themselves, seemed to be on high alert today. "Must be all the recent fighting with Duty" Viktoriya thought. Their captors took them to what looked like the main administration building, past a pair of guards at the door, then downstairs to the basement. The basement seemed to consist of mostly storage rooms, but there was one iron-barred jail cell. The pair had their packs taken off and their pockets searched, before being shoved into the cell. Already in the room was a lone man, stripped to his underclothes. Viktoriya recognized him immediately from the picture of the Duty prisoner they were supposed to be exchanging. When he saw Viktoriya and Dimitri he laughed under his breath.

"Wow, I'm surprised you guys survived. The way I heard those Freedom guys talking about it the plan sounded like it was going to be a bloodbath. I'm Nikolic, by the way, Warrant Officer."

"I'm Viktoriya, he's Dimitri."

"And rank?"

"None, we're Stalkers."

"I- they actually believed that whole 'using Stalkers' play? Christ, who was in charge of the operation."

"Pasternack. Or at least he's the one who hired us to make the swap."

"Well, he's gonna be getting a mouthful when I get out of here. If I ever do, for that matter. I apologize on behalf of the rest of Duty for getting you two into this mess."

"Hey, we survived. That's more than most Stalkers can say when a job goes bad. Anyway, I can't imagine they've got much reason to keep us here for too long." Viktoriya sighed, and looked around the room. It was bare except for a single bed against the wall. "I hope they let us have our bedrolls back. Is there anything to do to pass the time?"

"Well I've got a book you can read" Nikolic replied.

"Is it 'Roadside Picnic'?"

"It- yeah."

"Of course it is. I'll pass, thanks; I've already read it."

They were waiting for hours before three Freedom soldiers visited them (according to Viktoriya's watch it was a quarter past nine at the time). The first two were young men (both looked younger than Dimitri). One was carrying their bedrolls and a metal lunch box; the other just had an AK rifle. The third was a middle-aged man with hardened features and a prominent, bushy moustache; definitely a commissioned officer. He spoke to them in gruff, simple terms. "Alright, you two Stalkers are charged with aiding and abetting an enemy of Freedom. Ordinarily you would be released after one week's imprisonment. But, because of the heavy fighting of late and the risk that you'll return to the enemy with more aid or sensitive information we're going to hold you here indefinitely. We'll free you when we see fit, but I wouldn't be holding your breath. Once you're free you may do as you wish, but if you're caught aiding an enemy of Freedom again you'll face a firing squad." The younger soldier opened the door and handed them the bedrolls and the lunchbox, while the other kept his rifle trained on them to prevent anyone from trying to escape. The three soldiers then turned to leave, not giving anyone a chance to speak up.

Dimitri, who hadn't been able to keep still from nervousness the whole time they were in the cell, was distraught by the news. He yelled "No, wait! You can't! There must be something we can do to get out early?"

The officer, frustrated, turned around. "Well, if you like I can arrange a firing squad for you now. Otherwise, no. Now shut up; most lone Stalkers would think living with free food and board a pretty good deal."

Dimitri shut his mouth and stepped away from the iron bars. He waited a moment to make sure the soldiers were gone, and then turned to Viktoriya, who was sitting on the ground against the wall of the cell. "You can get us out of here, right?" he whispered to her.

"Um, no. The walls are solid concrete and the base outside is swarming with soldiers. I know I've been doing nothing but saving your ass for the last two days, but this is outside of my abilities." Viktoriya opened the lunchbox to find that it was full of dry bread and sliced diet sausage, and lost her appetite.

"Come on, there must be something you can do. We can't afford to sit here; we need to get to the plant in the next week! Can't you pick the lock with a bobby pin, or something?"

Viktoriya was becoming irritated now. "First of all, does it look like I use fucking bobby pins?" She ran her fingers through her short, messy hair to prove that there were none. "Secondly, if you wanna walk out there and get shot to hell by every fucking Freedom soldier in the zone then you can go ahead! But I'm going to be sitting right here. To hell with your job and your stupid parts if it means getting us both killed because you were too fidgety to sit still and wait a couple of weeks."

"I told you, I need those parts within the week. Otherwise the whole job is a failure, and I might as well turn around and head home. And you-" He hesitated a moment before continuing: "And you'll never find out what happened to your father. Don't you care about what happened to him?"

Viktoriya stood up, walked over to Dimitri and punched him in the chin. A bolt of pain shot up her arm and centered itself on her bullet wound, but she ignored it. Dimitri put his hand over his face and backed into the corner. She was thinking about giving him another, but Nikolic, the Duty soldier, stood up and held her back before she had a chance. "How dare you. HOW FUCKING DARE YOU! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BRING HIM INTO THIS!" She was shaking with rage now. "THAT MAN ABANDONED ME AND MY MOTHER SO HE COULD PRANCE AROUND A NUCLEAR FUCKING WASTELAND, AND NOW I'M STUCK HERE PICKING UP THE PIECES AFTER HIM! HE CAN GET FUCKED. YOU CAN GET FUCKED. THE WHOLE FUCKING ZONE CAN GET FUCKED!" She shook herself free of Nikolic's grip and collapsed onto the bed, silent.

After a few minutes Viktoriya sat up on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that; I'm just so sick and tired of this whole place. Honestly, if you want my advice, just turn around and head home. Don't pay any mind to what your science buddies say about the equipment or the plant; they can send someone else. Whatever bloody experiment they're doing isn't as important as you getting out of here alive. Just leave the zone and don't look back."

Dimitri sat down on the bed beside Viktoriya. "There's something I need to tell you" he said, pushing the words through the discomfort of his injured jaw. "I'm not going to the power plant to look for equipment." She gave him a puzzled look with red, puffy eyes, but allowed him to continue. "My science team has been monitoring the inner zone for years now, using equipment we paid Stalkers to place as close to the brain scorcher as they could get. There's a certain type of energy, a specific radioactive activity that emanates from the plant. We believe this is causing the zone to expand."

Nikolic spoke up then. "We already knew that. Duty have been telling everyone the zone is expanding for years."

"Yeah, it's been expanding at a steady, but fortunately slow rate since the zone first appeared. But now it's different. The energy levels have been rising over the past few months, hundreds of times greater than usual. Usually when the latent energy builds up too high there's an emission, or a 'blowout' as the Stalkers apparently call it. This releases the latent energy and brings it down to a more stable level. But there hasn't been an emission for months now."

Viktoriya and Nikolic both nodded in agreement. There hadn't been a blowout for some time.

"The energy has to go eventually, and when it does we think it's going to be the second Chernobyl incident all over again. I'm talking the zone doubling in size in the blink of an eye. The zone will engulf whole cities, and there will be too many deaths to count. The reason I'm going to the nuclear plant is to find whatever is generating the zone's energy and destroy it. With any luck, doing that will cause the whole zone to become de-energized and collapse in on itself."

Viktoriya had calmed down now, and was listening intently to Dimitri. "Why didn't you tell the government, or the military? Why did you hire me to get you to the plant by myself?"

"The military didn't believe us. They didn't believe that we could get past the brain scorcher and they didn't believe that another incident was possible. They didn't want to risk men getting me to the centre of the zone on what they thought was a wild goose chase." Dimitri shook his head. "We only had enough materials to make two of the protective suits, and no time to get any more, so the only way to do it was to send one scientist and hire one Stalker."

"But why did you keep this from me?" Viktoriya asked. "Why make up the story about needing parts?"

"We thought no Stalkers would want to help us if we told them we were going to be destroying their way of life. If I'd known about Duty earlier I might have reconsidered that. But if we're going to be stuck here for weeks then it doesn't matter, anyway."

"Ugh, this job just gets better and better" Viktoriya thought for a while, and then said "We'll have to wait until tomorrow night. I can either bribe the guard or snatch his keys when he brings us dinner. Then we just have to grab our gear and sneak out."

"You didn't think it was that easy half an hour ago."

"If I'd known we would be saving thousands of people instead of just fetching you some toys I probably would have been on board with escaping earlier. Anyway, there's nothing we can do now. Hopefully the zone doesn't explode between now and tomorrow evening."

Nikolic, who had been silent for most of their conversation, spoke up. "Hey, when you guys escape I'm coming with you. Us Dutyers have been fighting for years trying to do what you're doing, and I want to help in every way I can."

"We appreciate the offer" Viktoriya said, "but like he said, there's only enough protective equipment to get two people past the brain scorcher."

"You'll need help getting through the Red Forest. I'll go with you as far as I can, then circle back around to Duty."

"Okay. Can never have too many rifles."

Viktoriya and Dimitri unfurled their bedrolls while Nikolic took the bed and tried to get to sleep. But they were only laying down for about an hour when someone roused them by knocking on the iron bars of the door. It was a Freedom soldier, carrying the group's weapons and backpacks.

"Hey you two" he whispered. "We heard what happened with you guys getting captured and locked up, and we really don't think it's cool. A lot of us Freedomers started out as lone Stalkers, and Stalkers look out for each other. You shouldn't be locked up and left to rot like this just because you were on the bum end of a bad job." He pulled out a key and unlocked the door, opening it as slowly as he could to stop it creaking. "I'll get the three of you out of the base and to the road south. Take your equipment and follow me."

"Wait, you're letting me go too?" Nikolic asked?

"Well, yeah. If I just leave you here and the morning guard comes around to find two prisoners missing they're gonna question you. And then you'll tell them I did it to get a bonus of some kind. Here, you can wear this:" he threw a Freedom uniform at the Duty soldier, who started dressing immediately. "Once he's ready we'll get going."

"Just one thing" Viktoriya whispered at him. "We're not going south. We're going north."

"North? To the forest? Why on earth are you going there?"

Before Dimitri could answer Viktoriya said "I'm escorting him to the plant to look for some special science equipment. We've got a way to get past the brain scorcher." Dimitri and Nikolic both nodded in agreement, understanding that a Freedom soldier wouldn't be happy with the idea of them destroying the zone.

The Freedomer seemed convinced by the lie. "Alright, cool. Can I come with you? I've always wanted to see what's at the plant."

"There's only enough protective gear to get the two of us past the scorcher. But there's definitely an artifact in it for you if you can help us through the Red Forest."

"Alright, sounds good. I've got some buddies who can cover for me. The name's Vasiliy, by the way. Now let's get moving before someone hears us." The group made their final weapons preparations and exited the jail cell.

Vasiliy led the group upstairs out of the building and onto the Freedom base. It was a bright, moonlit night, but fortunately there weren't any patrols around to spot them. Vasiliy took them to the eastern perimeter wall of the base, on the far side from the main entrance, and then south about fifty metres before stopping.

"Okay, we can get outside here. Everyone make sure your gear is strapped on tight."

The wall looked solid to Viktoriya, but when she looked up she saw that the barbed wire running over the top had come apart and left them a nice wide gap to climb over.

"I'll boost you three over then run around to meet you. I've got friends on the guard at the front gate who will let me through without any questions."

Vasiliy stood at the base of the wall and boosted Viktoriya over first. Once she'd landed she immediately stepped out of the way, raised her rifle and began scanning the woods for potential dangers. She heard Dimitri land behind her, and then Nikolic. They were waiting for about 10 minutes before Vasiliy appeared from the south and started leading them to the north.

"Okay, we're gonna cut through the woods and around the barricade, and after we're past we'll still keep to the woods to try and dodge any Monolith patrols. We'll move in a tight group, since that'll help scare off any dogs we might come across."

"What about boars?" Nikolic asked.

"They stay out of the thickest parts of the forest; they're too big to move through them properly."

"Wait" Dimitri said, "who's Monolith?"

"We don't know a lot about them, except that they're religious fanatics who shoot on sight anyone who isn't them, and they can move freely through the brain scorcher. They've got some crazy tech too; I got this rifle off one of their dead the last time they attack the barricade." He held up his rifle to show them, but in the low light the Viktoriya couldn't make out what model it was exactly.

"What? That doesn't make any sense. How could they possibly just walk through the brain scorcher?"

"You're not from around here, are you?" Vasiliy replied. "This is the zone, kid. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense."

"I suppose that's true" Dimitri conceded.

After a few hours of walking they found themselves in the Red Forest. It lived up to its name, characterized by the red needles on the trees that had died in the aftermath of the first Chernobyl disaster. The air here was cloaked with a strange, greenish haze, and the area contained scattered pockets of lethal radiation. Vasiliy led them around the radiation using a Geiger counter he had brought with him, but progression through the forest was painfully slow. Dawn had just broken when they came to a small clearing in the trees. They were still well away from any roads, so they decided to take a short break before continuing on to the brain scorcher.

In the morning light Viktoriya could now see what rifle Vasiliy was using; it was a VLA Special Assault Rifle, used by the Russian Spetsnaz. It was a good weapon for their current situation, as it was silenced, but it suffered at long ranges.

"Hey," she said to Vasiliy, "mind if I borrow your rifle for a second? My friend here needs to learn how to use one if we're going to have any chance of winning a fight against a group of Monolith soldiers."

"What? How has he made it this far in the zone without using a rifle?"

"He's had me to save his ass, is how" Viktoriya responded.

"Hey, I have this too" Dimitri said, holding out his Makarov pistol.

"Huh, same as mine" Vasiliy said, holding out his own Makarov. "So I guess that story about the Stalker in the exchange trying to fire his rifle with the safety on was true after all. Anyway, go ahead; just try to keep the noise down. We've done well to avoid Monolith so far, and I'd really like that to continue." Viktoriya took the rifle and showed Dimitri the basics of aiming using a scope and correct firing stance. He picked up the information quickly enough, it seemed. He had a few practice shots into the trunk of a large tree on the far edge of the clearing, and didn't have any problems with jerking the trigger or anticipating recoil. He already knew how to fire a handgun, so that made sense.

Once they had rested a bit they resumed their expedition north through the Red Forest. Everyone was feeling tired now, since nobody had slept the entire previous night, but there was nothing for them to do but push onwards. They managed to avoid any encounters, except for a couple of dogs Vasiliy shot with remarkable speed and accuracy. But after another hour of walking the forest became too thick with trees, anomalies and radiation pockets for them to continue, so they had to leave the trees and move onto the road.

"Alright" Vasiliy said. "Now that we're on the road it'll be faster going, but we need to be more careful. We'll spread out into a ten-metre diamond formation. Viktoriya, you've got a scope so you can take point for now. Nikolic and Dimitri in the centre, and I'll bring up the rear. If you see a person: shoot them; there's no-one out here except us and Monolith. Is that okay with everyone?"

Nobody raised any objection to the proposed formation, though Nikolic seemed to be a bit taken aback by Vasiliy's eagerness to give out orders. Viktoriya took the Geiger counter from Vasiliy, and then everyone assumed their positions and moved out. "This guy seems like an experienced soldier" Viktoriya thought, "so why is he only a Freedom grunt?"

They walked for another half an hour without incident, until Viktoriya noticed something moving on the road up ahead. She stopped and held up a closed fist to signal the others to stop too. Dimitri didn't recognize the signal and walked an extra couple of steps before he noticed that the others had stopped. Through the scope of her rifle Viktoriya saw a pair of figures, standing guard on either side of the road. They were a good 200 metres away, and didn't appear to have noticed the group approaching through the haze of the forest. Just behind where they were standing was a T-intersection, at which they needed to turn right to reach the brain scorcher.

About twenty metres ahead of them was a truck that had turned on its side across the road, so Viktoriya signaled the others to move up and take cover behind it. They crawled towards the truck to avoid being detected by the soldiers, and once they were all safely hidden behind it Viktoriya explained the situation in a low whisper.

Vasiliy went to the right edge of the truck and used his scope to get a look at the situation himself. He then went to the other side and had a look from there. "Okay" he said, "the woods here are too thick for us to cut through, but we should be able to take these guys out without raising any alarms. Viktoriya, you and I will take up position on either side of the truck. I'll take the one on the left; you'll take the one on the right. I'll count us in, and we both fire on three. Are you confident you can make the shot?"

The dull ache in Viktoriya's injured arm and her tired, heavy eyes became obvious in that moment, but she pushed them out of her mind. "Not a problem" she said, and took up a kneeling firing position on the right side of the truck. She looked through the scope, regulated her breathing until it was slow and steady, and gave Vasiliy the thumbs up.

Vasiliy counted them in. "One…Two…Three!" Viktoriya fired on three, but before she'd even squeezed the trigger she knew it would miss. Sure enough, the bullet sailed clean overhead of the enemy. They must have heard the shot and seen their friend drop, because they immediately started running back down the road. Viktoriya was about to shoot at him again, but before she got the chance she heard the soft crack of a silenced rifle, and the soldier dropped dead. Vasiliy walked back around the side of the truck. "Good thing I got him or we would be in deep shit right about now" he said. "We don't know how long it's gonna take their friends to find them, so we need to move out quickly. I'll take point again; Viktoriya, you take the rear."

Viktoriya was embarrassed that she'd missed what should have been an easy shot so she sheepishly agreed and handed back the Geiger counter. "A still target at 200m. I should have at least hit the body, if not the head" she thought. They took up walking again at a faster pace, and made it to the intersection and down the road to Pripyat without encountering any more soldiers.

After they turned at the intersection they walked for about a kilometre, until a Dimitri's abckpack started beeping. "Hold on" he said to the others. He took off his pack, opened it, and pulled out the strange remote control Viktoriya had seen the day she met him (which felt a lot longer ago than the three days it had actually been). He studied the display on the screen for a moment, and then pressed a button to stop the beeping noise. "We're approaching the brain scorcher now; it's not safe to continue past here without protection."

The group came in to shake hands and say their goodbyes before parting ways. Viktoriya and Dimitri gave thanks to Vasiliy and Nikolic, who both wished them well in their journey to the power plant. "So how are you getting through the scorcher, anyway?" Vasiliy asked.

Dimitri took the two protective suits out of his pack, camo-painted full body things (like a radiation suit) with a clear plastic face-window, to show Vasiliy. "My team at the lab in Kiev developed these suits. They're basically the same as ordinary rad suits, but with far greater protection" he said to Vasiliy, and handed one to Viktoriya.

She was a little confused. "What about the whole 'calibrating them to specific frequencies' thing using that remote control?"

"Oh, yeah I made that up. I thought if you knew you could just run through the scorcher with my help you would just take the suit and run off to go treasure hunting."

Viktoriya was a little offended, but she admitted that it was a smart idea to keep that from her.

"Oh," Dimitri added, "you'll want to take your coat off first. These things get surprisingly hot."

"We'll wait here while you get ready" Vasiliy said. "We wouldn't want you to get caught with your pants down, so to speak." Everyone laughed a little at the joke, and Viktoriya put down her rifle and undid her holster to start getting changed.

Viktoriya had taken off her pack and her coat, and had just stepped into the legs of her protective suit when she heard the quiet, but still distinct crack of a silenced gunshot. She figured that Dimitri must have accidentally discharged his Makarov while getting changed. She turned to see what had happened, just in time to see Nikolic slump to the ground while Vasiliy turned to point his Makarov at her face. She panicked and took a step backwards, tripping and falling over the suit tangled at her feet while the bullet from Vasiliy's gun flew through the air above her head.

When Viktoriya landed she grabbed her Browning from its holster and aimed it at Vasiliy, who stepped behind Dimitri and grabbed him around the neck to use as a human shield. Viktoriya had her gun aimed at Vasiliy's head, but there was no way for her to fire without the risk of hitting Dimitri instead.

"What the fuck!? What are you doing?" Viktoriya asked, still seated.

"I heard everything you said last night about how the zone is going to expand, and how you were planning to stop it. Fuck that, let the zone expand. Let the whole world live like this; like real men! I'm surprised you expected anything different from a Freedom soldier."

"But then why did you free us? Why not just leave us there in the cell and let the expansion happen?"

"Well, when I overheard you talk about going through the brain scorcher I figured I could do a bit of treasure hunting. I get you three to help me through the Red Forest; I take your suits and stroll to the plant and back with a hefty haul of artifacts all to myself."

Dimitri called out: "Viktoriya-!"

"Shut up!" Vasiliy yelled in his ear, and put his gun to Dimitri's temple.

Dimitri kept going. "Viktoriya, you can get through to the plant yourself. You don't need me to do it. Don't let this asshole kill thousands of people just for my sake!"

"He's right you know" Viktoriya said. "A lot of innocent people are going to die if the next incident happens, and you're just going to let it happen. So you and your fucking Freedom buddies get to play around in a radioactive wasteland." Her arms were straining with the effort of holding the gun up, and her bullet wound has progressed from an annoying ache to stabbing needles of white-hot pain. But she fought through the pain, keeping her gun pointed at Vasiliy. "I thought bandits were the worst the zone had to offer, but I guess it's actually you."

"Maybe that's all true. But it's not like either of you are going to be telling anyone." Vasiliy snapped his gun away from Dimitri's head and pointed it at Viktoriya's. Dimitri drove his elbow backwards into Vasiliy's gut, causing him to lose grip and allowing Dimitri to duck down, just in time for both guns to go off.

Vasiliy was dead before he hit the ground, the bullet having hit him between his eyes. His body slumped over on top of itself only a few feet from where Nikolic's had done the same. Viktoriya fell back onto her elbows, gasping with relief. Dimitri stood up, looked at the dead body behind him, and began patting himself all over as if to confirm that he was still alive. Satisfied, he ran over to help Viktoriya back up, but his expression turned grim when he saw her.

It wasn't until then that Viktoriya felt a pain in her left side. She tried to sit up to have a look at it but the pain increase tenfold when she tried, causing her to fall back onto the ground. Dimitri was panicking now, and had rushed back to where his backpack was to grab something. Viktoriya felt around the sore area and found that the skin was extremely tender. When she brought her hand back up to her face it was covered in dark red blood.

Dimitri came back with an armful of what looked like various medical supplies. He took off his coat, laid it out on the ground, then dumped the supplies on top of it. He unscrewed the lid to Viktoriya's canteen and handed it to her. It took nearly all the strength her arm had to lift the canteen to her mouth and drink a mouthful of water, which tasted metallic. She nearly vomited it back up only a few seconds later when Dimitri began pulling up her shirt to get a better look at the wound. She winced in pain as he began putting something over the wound. He then rolled her onto her front and did something to the other side (an exit wound, she figured). He was saying things the whole time, but she only caught a few words, like "You'll be okay" and "Can't stay here." She knew she must have lost a lot of blood, because she felt completely outside of her own body as Dimitri zipped up her protective suit and helped her to her feet. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was a flash of warmth and a large apartment building.


	5. Chapter 5

Viktoriya woke slowly, her head pounding as her eyes strained in the low light of the room. She guessed it must be the late afternoon, because everything was bathed in orange. She seemed to be in a small apartment, with a kitchen nook in the far side of the room. It looked like it might have been a nice place at one point, but everything was run-down and decrepit now. After a moment she became aware of how desperately thirsty she was, and began looking around the room for her backpack. It was then that she saw a figure sitting in a chair facing away from her. She couldn't make out much about the person, except that he had a rifle in his hands.

Viktoriya tried to get the person's attention, but the words caught in her throat and sent her into a fit of weak coughing. He heard her, though, and immediately jumped out of the chair and rushed to her side. Dimitri looked like he'd been awake for days. His eyes were dark and sunken, he was covered in dirt and he had a cut running down one side of his face.

"You're awake?! You're awake. Thank god. How are you feeling?"

She tried to answer, but again she couldn't get the words out. She made a hand gesture to signal 'drinking', which Dimitri understood. He went back to the chair he'd been sitting on and grabbed the canteen beside it, unscrewed the lid and handed it to her. She lifted it to her mouth and took a long sip, and then another. When she was done she laid her head back down on the pillow and fell asleep again.

Viktoriya woke suddenly this time. She sat bolt upright, which caused a stabbing pain in her side. "Oh right, I was shot again" she thought to herself. It was almost pitch black in the room now. Patting herself down she found that the protective suit was gone, and that she was just in her underclothes now. She rolled onto her stomach and started feeling around the floor near the bed for a flashlight. Her hand instead found her canteen, which she took a long drink out of before resuming her search. She couldn't find a light of any sort in her immediate vicinity, so she tried calling out to Dimitri in a loud whisper. There was no answer.

She laid on the bed for a while, not sure whether to get up and look for a light source, possibly causing her wound to burst open and bleed out, or if she should just stay where she was and wait for Dimitri to return. Waiting seemed to go against the entire way she'd lived for the last five years. She was a Stalker, after all; a loner. If she wanted something she had to go and get it herself. And she had no idea where Dimitri was, or when or even if he would be coming back. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness a little, and she could just barely make out that Dimitri was gone from his chair, and that his pack and rifle were gone as well.

"Okay, I should get up and go looking for him" Viktoriya eventually resolved. She carefully sat up, though even that gradual movement caused the pain in her side to flare up, and moved her legs off to the edge of the bed. That slight effort had drained her energy more than she'd expected, and she noticed that she was ravenously hungry. She tentatively put weight on her legs and, reasonably confident that she wouldn't topple over, stood up. She felt weak and wobbly, but she was able to make her way to the window and peer outside, leaning on the frame to conserve her energy.

She was at least a few stories from the ground, looking out at an abandoned city. The view caused a surge of recollection, like one would have when they hear a favourite song from long ago, or smell a particular smell. It was Pripyat, she realized. She was a young girl, young enough that she hadn't even started school, at the time of the first incident, but the memory of this place was seared into her mind. It was too dark to make out any distinctive features in the buildings around her, but she knew she couldn't be far from where they'd lived back then.

Viktoriya had been so caught up in her recollection that she didn't even hear the footsteps coming from outside, until someone started carefully opening the door. She panicked when she realized that she had no weapons at hand. Desperate, she limped back over to Dimitri's chair and tried to lift it to throw at her aggressor, which would either knock them out or buy her a few seconds to find a better plan, but she was too weak to lift it properly.

The man opened the door, but stopped when he saw her. "Viktoriya, what are you doing? You should be in bed" Dimitri said, closing the door behind him.

She put down the chair, feeling simultaneously relieved and foolish. "Sorry, I just woke up and I saw that you were gone. Then when I heard you opening the door I thought- ugh, never mind. Where have you been, anyway?"

"I had to go look for food and water. We're nearly completely out of both, and I couldn't go during the day because there are those Monolith guys around. I didn't find much in the way of food, but I did find a few bottles of water. That'll last us a couple of days, at least."

Viktoriya suddenly remembered just how hungry she was. "What food do we have, then?"

Dimitri shone a small flashlight into his backpack, being careful not to let any of the light spill out into the room. "Half a sausage and some stale bread, plus a few tins of food I found with the water. It's all safe to eat, I checked it with the Geiger counter. But for now there's no way to prepare any of it right now. It's too dark to see, and I don't want to use a proper light in case there's someone outside who sees it coming out the window."

"Just hand me the sausage" Viktoriya said. Dimitri obliged, and she bit straight into it. The meat was foul-tasting, tough and exceedingly difficult to chew, but she was grateful for the food regardless. She'd gotten about halfway through it before she had to stop; not because she was full (she was still ravenously hungry), but because her jaw was too tired to chew through it anymore.

"Well, your appetite's back, at least. That's a good sign. How are you feeling?"

"I feel like I've been run down by a pack of boars. My head hurts, my side is killing me and I can barely stand up. On top of all that I haven't even got anything to drink."

"You shouldn't be drinking in your state, anyway. What's really important right now is this: do you feel tired at all?"

"No more than usual. Why?"

"Because I've been awake for nearly three days now, and you're well overdue to stand watch. Do you think you can sit in the chair for a few hours while I get some shut-eye?"

"Sure. I'll let you know if I keel over and die at some point." Dimitri didn't appear to have heard her, as he simply pushed past her, flopped down on the bed and started snoring almost immediately. Viktoriya picked up the rifle he'd placed on the ground (which she recognized from its feel as the silenced VLA Special Vasiliy had been using), and sat down in the chair, watching the door until the sun rose.

Dimitri woke up about 6 hours later, not long after dawn. He'd slept restlessly despite falling asleep so quickly, tossing and turning the whole night on the stiff, squeaky bed. Once he'd awakened they split the remaining bread and sausage. It was an unpleasant meal, but filling, and it went down easy enough with some water.

"Where did you find the food, anyway?" Viktoriya asked, between mouthfuls.

"It was just in an apartment like this one. I had to comb through heaps of them before I found anything edible. It took forever."

"So, this stuff was just sitting in someone's pantry?"

"No, that's the weird part. It was all sitting on the floor, next to a chair that was just facing out the window."

Viktoriya stopped chewing mid-bite while she took in what Dimitri had said. "That… That was a sniper outpost" she said after swallowing her food.

Dimitri stopped eating as well. "Um, is that bad?"

"Well, it just means that Monolith or whoever now know that we're here in the city, and that they have at least one sniper. Or maybe dozens. Where was this outpost, anyway?"

"It was upstairs. I think two floors from the top."

"They're in this building!?" she hissed at him. Any sense of safety and security Viktoriya had felt in their tiny hide-away disappeared. Now they may as well be trussed up in front of the firing squad they were promised back at Freedom.

"Okay, we need to get out of here ASAP" she continued in a whisper, "but we sure as hell can't move during the daytime. So, what we're going to do is wait here very, very quietly until an hour after nightfall, and then we're going to sneak out of here." Once they'd finished eating hurriedly they collected their packs and weapons (Viktoriya took the VLA rifle, Dimitri took her AKM) and sat themselves down in the most comfortable positions they could find.

And so they waited, Viktoriya sitting on the chair in the centre of the room and Dimitri sitting against the back wall, next to the bed (the bed itself was far too loud for him to sit on it quietly). Dimitri, to his credit, waited very patiently. There was no sign of any Monolith soldiers the whole time they were there, and the temptation to simply stand up and walk downstairs was always present. But no, it was far too risky to go out in broad daylight, whether or not they could see any soldiers around. Luck was a finite resource in the zone, and Viktoriya suspected she'd used all of hers up by getting shot twice and managing to survive.

Nightfall came eventually, after what felt like decades to the pair. The last stretch of waiting, watching the light spilling through the window turn orange and disappear, was by far the hardest, but it was over eventually. Once it was properly dark they strapped their packs on and crept up to the front door, trying to be as quiet as possible. Viktoriya was just about to open the door, but stopped herself. "Listen" she said to Dimitri, "before we go out there, I just want to thank you for everything you've done the last couple of days. You found food, kept a good watch, and stopped me from bleeding to death. You would make a fine Stalker."

Dimitri smiled at her weakly. "Well, you've still saved me a lot more times than I've saved you. I still haven't even had to shoot anybody."

"Well, with any luck it'll stay that way. Come on, let's go." Viktoriya double-checked her weapons and her pockets, and carefully opened the door into the hallway of the apartment building. She poked her rifle out into the hallway, looking just over the scope for her aim. The scope was inconvenient in the close space, but she would need it once they got outside so it had to stay attached. Once she was satisfied that the coast was clear she opened the door fully and stepped out of the apartment, with Dimitri following her.

"Okay, stay right behind me every step of the way. Check your six every five seconds, and shoot first. But stick to the Makarov for now: the snipers will be isolated, meaning if we can take them out quietly we should be able to avoid alerting anyone else." Dimitri didn't say anything, but Viktoriya knew he understood everything; she'd come to realize that he was smart enough to speak up if he didn't.

Moving through the building felt almost as arduous as waiting for nightfall. The hallway was almost pitch-black, and they couldn't risk using a flashlight in case an enemy outside (or hiding around the corner) saw it, so there was nothing else to do but walk carefully through the darkness, feeling their way against the walls. They eventually found the emergency exit stairs, a grey concrete spine connecting the top floor to the bottom, and proceeded downwards. Viktoriya had to sling her rifle and switch to her Browning while they climbed down the stairs, so she could keep one hand on the railing.

They made it to the bottom of the stairs, which opened out into the building's entry foyer, without incident. Viktoriya switched back to her rifle and surveyed the room. Once she'd deemed it they walked around the back of the stairs, which led to the fire exit.

Viktoriya stopped Dimitri at the door and whispered to him: "Okay, from here we just need to stay low and move quickly. As far as I can tell there aren't a lot of soldiers out here, but that's no reason to get cocky. We've been lucky enough these past few days: it's going to run out eventually. Like before: stay behind me, check your six, keep low and quiet. Now let's go."

Now that they were outside they were able to see a bit better, thanks to the small amount of moonlight that permeated the zone's atmosphere. Viktoriya knew it was a double-edged sword, as it also meant they would be visible to the enemy, but without it they would be feeling their way between buildings for days. They were standing in a back alley that ran north-to-south, between two sets of tall buildings. They had come into Pripyat from the South, and the power plant was basically due north, so it was a good starting point for them. There was a distant humming noise digging at Viktoriya's ears. It wasn't loud enough to be particularly annoying, but not knowing what it was made her nervous. There was nothing she could do about it for the time being, though. She used her rifle scope to check that the street ahead of them was clear, and then started on the road north.

Progression through the city was painfully slow, mainly because of Viktoriya's determination to not be shot again. They stepped as lightly as they could, only moved from cover after meticulously checking for movement and stuck to the winding back-streets and alleyways as much as possible. Viktoriya also needed to stop and rest fairly often; her strength hadn't returned enough for her to comfortably manage carrying all of her gear. All the while, the faint humming noise she could hear was growing louder.

"Hey, do you hear that noise?" she whispered to Dimitri, while they were crouched together in the corner of an abandoned shopfront.

"Yeah, I could only just hear it when I first dragged you into the city, but it's way louder now" he whispered back. "I think it must be coming from the nuclear plant."

"Should we be worried about that."

"Yes. It must be coming from the latent energy being stored up. I don't know how bad it is, but as far as I can tell the plant could go off at any moment."

"I thought you said we had days left?"

"I haven't been in touch with my lab at all since I got to the zone. They're the ones with all the monitoring equipment; for all I know something's changed between now and when I left. But what I know for sure is that that noise, which means the building is literally shaking, means the energy is at a critical."

"Shit. I guess we'd better get moving then." Viktoriya stood up and motioned for Dimitri to follow her back out onto the road.

It was hours before they made it to the north end of the city near the nuclear plant, but they successfully avoided alerting (or even seeing) any Monolith soldiers. Once they had snuck around the east side of a set of wide buildings with a large open courtyard in the middle (Viktoriya could see artifacts in the courtyard, but didn't even think about trying to grab them) they came to a road running east/west with a fence on the other side from where they were. Through the fence she could see the Chernobyl nuclear Power Plant towering over the night sky, the lower half illuminated by what appeared to be running streetlights around the outer walls. The noise was definitely louder here, which seemed to confirm what Dimitri had said about it coming from the plant. Viktoriya pressed against the corner of the building and used her rifle scope to scout out the fence for any potential ways through.

They were about a hundred metres away from the only gate into the plant, and Viktoriya could see a pair of guards flanking the entrance. The guards hadn't seen them because they were far away, and in cover. However, Viktoriya could see that they were wearing night vision goggles. The goggles meant that the guards could see through the darkness, but it also destroyed their peripheral vision. Since she would be coming in from the side, Viktoriya figured it might actually be advantageous to them. There was a pair of long, decorative planters running parallel to the fence, about halfway between her and the gate, but apart from that the space between them was open ground.

Viktoriya checked her watch; it was 4am. The sun would be rising soon, and they didn't have any more time to sit and think. "Okay, here's the plan" she whispered to Dimitri, a little louder than usual to combat the noise coming from the plant. "I'm going to try and sneak up on those guards and take them out quietly. You wait here until I'm done, then move up to where I am." She was unsure if she would be able to hit them both quickly enough, considering her failed shot back in the red forest, but she kept that from Dimitri.

"Okay, but how will I know when you're done?"

"Well, if you hear this rifle fire, and then nobody else fires after a few seconds, that means I'm done."

"Right. And if I do hear someone else fire?"

"Then I need you to take your rifle and start firing at them too. I don't know how many of them are in there, but once this goes noisy I think it'll take some time for it to quieten down again. And if it does it'll take more than just me to go through them."

Dimitri responded with a quick nod. Viktoriya knew that he was nervous, but underneath that there was a determination she hadn't sensed from him before. "Hey, don't worry" she said. "If I can do my job properly then there'll be no problem."

"Yeah, I guess I'll find out if you're worth what I'm paying you, after all."

It was an unfunny joke, and not really appropriate timing, but they both laughed a little to help alleviate the tension. "Okay, I'm moving up. Wish me luck."

Viktoriya got down on her stomach and started crawling prone towards the gate. She knew she had to be quick, but she had to balance that knowledge against the possibility that one of the soldiers would turn his head far enough to see her. The shuffling motion involved, plus the strain it put on her arms, was sending daggers of pain through both of her bullet wounds with each movement. She fought through the pain though, like she had been doing for the past few days. "Just gotta take these guys out, do some stuff in the plant and then I can head back home, and get Yevhen to stuff me full of painkillers until I can't see straight" she reassured herself as she crawled.

After about forty metres she reached the planter. It was tall enough that Viktoriya was able to swap her prone crawl for a hands-and-knees crawl to shift the pressure from the bullet wound on her side. Once she was on the edge of the planter nearest the gate she decided not to go any further, in order to preserve the advantage she had from the guard's lack of peripheral vision. She slowly raised her body from behind the planter and adopted a kneeling firing position, resting her elbows on the edge of the concrete bulk. Fortunately the plants that had once occupied it had long since died off, meaning she had a clear, unobstructed shot from where she was.

"Okay, this will be easy. You're about one-third the distance away as you were last time, so shouldn't be a problem" Viktoriya thought to herself. That she was using an unfamiliar rifle and had twice as many targets this time also crossed her mind, but she pushed the thought away as she looked down the scope of the rifle. The guards were still completely unaware of her presence. She couldn't make out any distinctive features of the guards from where she was, but her heart sank when she recognized the dark outline of their combat helmets. "Okay, so either go for the easy bodyshot and hope they die quickly enough, or go for two one-in-a-million neckshots in a row. Or go for the head and gamble on whether or not the bullet just bounces off." She was firing armour-piercing bullets, but the VLA rifle was known to suffer at longer ranges due to the slower velocity of the round. As far as she could tell it could easily go either way.

Viktoriya held her breath, lined up a headshot on the guard furthest from her and fired. He fell away from her, as though someone had wrapped an invisible rope around his head and yanked it to the side. The second guard jumped a bit from the soft crack of her rifle shot (still noticeable, even through the ambient noise from the plant and the VLA's silencer), but didn't react properly until he saw his buddy slump over. Viktoriya was running on pure instinct at that point. Lacking the precious extra second it would have taken to line up another headshot, she squeezed off a round into the small of the man's back, then followed the recoil up and put another round In his chest. He lurched a bit and then dropped, not saying a word. "At least I can still do something right" Viktoriya thought to herself, before waving to Dimitri for him to move up.

They both waited behind the planter for about ten minutes, each half-expecting a battalion of soldiers to come to the aid of their fallen comrades at any moment (though none did). Once Viktoriya was satisfied that they were clear the pair stood up and walked over to the gate. Through the gate they could see that the road to the plant itself still continued for about another half a kilometer, but Viktoriya couldn't see any more soldiers through her rifle scope. "Okay, it looks we have a few minutes respite" she said to Dimitri "plenty of time to get ready before we move ahead." She used the time to perform an ammo count, and found that her rifle only had five rounds left. She went over to Dimitri, who was sitting on the ground at one side of the gate, drinking from a plastic bottle of water. "Give me back my rifle. You take the rifle off that soldier, and check his pockets for any spare mags. Grab his pistol, too. Your Makarov won't even tickle them through their armour."

While Dimitri was doing that Viktoriya took a moment to study the Monolith soldiers she'd put down. The second one was closest to her, laying on his back in a growing pool of blood that looked almost black in the darkness. She'd shot him in the back, but there were no exit wounds on his front. "Must have hit him in the spine" Viktoriya thought. She unzipped his overcoat to see that he had been wearing heavy ceramic plate armour to match his helmet. All of their equipment seemed to be military spec, which made Viktoriya feel a bit naked with just her clothes and hooded jacket. Figuring that no harm could come of it she put down her rifle, unclipped the dead soldier's combat helmet and put it on her own head. "Not exactly kosher to take gear off dead soldiers, but if it keeps us alive then I won't feel too bad." Once that was done she went to see if Dimitri needed help.

Viktoriya turned around just in time to see the first guard she'd shot sit up, wrestle his rifle back from Dimitri's grasp and smash him across the face with the butt. Viktoriya drew her Browning and fired three shots. One of the three hit him in the side, but it wasn't enough to stop the guard from producing a flare gun and firing it into the air. She fired three more rounds, this time hitting him in the neck. Viktoriya stepped closer and saw the bullet from her rifle embedded in the soldier's helmet, glinting in the red glow of the flare high above them. She figured the shot from the rifle must have just knocked him out.

"That's not good, is it?" Dimitri asked.

"No, not really. Quick, grab his rifle and his ammo. We've got to backtrack to a defensible position. It'll be some time before they drop their guard again now that they know someone's in the city."

"We can't afford to be holed up forever. The noise the plant is making says it could go off at any moment."

Viktoriya knew he was right. "Well then we'll have to fight through them. And unless you've got a way to take out half of Monolith at once I don't think we'll do very well."

"Wait a second" Dimitri said, before dropping his pack and rifling through it. Viktoriya was starting to get antsy by the time he pulled out the large remote like-thing he'd been using to monitor the radiation levels. He undid a catch on the back to reveal that the inside was completely hollow, concealing two rectangular bricks of C4 explosive and a radio detonator. He then pulled the tiny LCD display showing the radiation levels clean off, revealing that it was held on with glue. "I thought we might need to blow up something at the plant. The remote doesn't actually do anything."

"Great, whatever. Just hand it here and get the fuck over to that building! Leave your pack, too!" Viktoriya had to operate quickly, the adrenaline coursing through her eliminating any shred of tiredness she'd been feeling. She went into Dimitri's pack and fished out his worn shirts, which were thoroughly infused with the swampy odour of stale sweat, and a box of unused ammo for her AKM rifle. She laid out the shirts, placed the C4 bricks in the centre of each shirt, dumped the bullets on top to use as shrapnel and wrapped them up into two small packages. She placed each package under the arm of one of the dead soldiers so as to not look too conspicuous, kicked Dimitri's pack away so that it wouldn't rouse suspicion, then ran back to the building with her rifle in one hand the detonator in the other.

Viktoriya raced up the steps and took cover behind a low wall on the right side, next to Dimitri. The run had winded her completely, so she took a moment to catch her breath before she handed Dimitri the detonator. She then peered out over the wall to see a mob of Monolith soldiers moving towards the dead guards from the plant. There looked to be about a dozen of them. "How many soldiers do these guys have if they afford to send that many to respond to a single flare?" she thought. She whispered to Dimitri "As soon as I detonate the bombs just raise your rifle and fire at anything that moves, okay?" He nodded his confirmation. "Good. Now move down that way; we're too bunched up"

Viktoriya got down behind the wall and poked her face just out around the side, relying on her peripheral vision to see her targets. They were about 25 metres away now; some were moving ahead and some were inspecting the bodies. She was waiting for the right moment, when she could ensure maximum confusion and damage from the two explosives. The soldiers seemed to have split into two groups now: half inspecting the bodies (from where Viktoriya was they looked unusually panicked for heavily armed, apparently brain-dead soldiers) and half moving towards Viktoriya and Dimitri, fanning out in search of them. A soldier picked up one of the bombs; Viktoriya seized the opportunity and pressed the detonator.

The explosion was quieter than Viktoriya had anticipated, but she figured that it must have been dulled somewhat by the persistent noise coming from the plant, which she swore had gotten louder since she last took notice of it. The effect of the bomb was still felt in the ruble that went through the wall they were pressed against. Viktoriya raised her rifle over the wall and fired at the first guy to enter her crosshairs. Just as she had planned, the soldiers who were moving towards them spun around when the explosion went off, making it easy to shoot them in the back. Each soldier received a three-round burst, starting from the lower abdomen and travelling up towards the head. She had dropped four of them when she realized that there were no more standing. The group that had been caught in the explosion were all on the ground, as were the other six that had been moving towards them.

"Good shooting" Viktoriya said to Dimitri, when she realized that he'd taken down two of the soldiers by himself. "Now come on, we have to move quickly."

"Wait, before we get into another fight we should put our protective suits back on. They'll protect us from the radiation in the plant."

"Wait, I thought they only protected against the brain scorcher? If they protect against radiation we could've used them in the red forest."

"I needed to keep the suits safe. They're not very strong material, and if they'd snagged on a tree or something we wouldn't have been able to pass through the scorcher."

"Okay, whatever. We'll put the suits on, but we have to hurry. They sent a dozen guys to respond to a single flare, so god knows how many they'll send for an explosion."

Dimitri ran over to where Viktoriya had kicked his pack while she double-tapped all the guards with her rifle (having learned her lesson from the one with a bullet in his helmet). Dimitri stepped into his suit and zipped it up completely, than handed her the other one. She put it on, but only zipped it up to the neck, leaving the head covering off her face. "I don't want it to fuck with my aim. I'll zip the rest up later" she explained. Dimitri agreed that was a good idea, and unzipped the top of his suit to match. Viktoriya exchanged her rifle with one from the corpse of a dead soldier, which had no scope but came with a flashlight attachment, as well as some spare magazines and a couple of grenades. Once she was kitted out they started running towards the plant, eager to get ahead of any more Monolith soldiers that might be coming their way.

The road to the plant was littered with discarded vehicles (some military and some civilian) as well as large piles of building materials and shipping containers. "Must be from before the incident" Viktoriya thought as they ran, because thinking about that helped mask the pain from the wound in her side. Any weakness she'd felt earlier was gone; she was running on adrenaline now. They were nearly at the outer wall of the sarcophagus when they encountered the next group of Monolith soldiers, about a dozen of them again, who opened fire the second they spotted the pair. They took cover behind a shipping container on the side of the road, each of them at opposite ends, and waited for the hail of bullets to stop before they opened fire themselves. Viktoriya's new rifle had no scope on it, but the iron sights were serving her just fine against soldiers that were only about twenty or thirty metres away.

Dimitri was fighting surprisingly well for a man whose first kill had happened less than twenty minutes prior. Viktoriya was still dropping at least three soldiers for every one of Dimitri's, but she was impressed by his determination nonetheless. Despite the sheer number of Monolith soldiers they were up against they didn't have much difficulty dealing with them. The soldiers were fighting with fervor rather than tactics, emptying their mags into the side of the container and firing all at once rather than staggering their bursts. They weren't particularly bothered about taking cover either, preferring to stand in the open and catch bullets to try and get a better shot. Viktoriya's mind went back to their accidental gunfight against Pasternack's Duty soldiers, and how they had been able to lock them behind cover the whole time by working together and covering each other with their fire. Still, their enemy's armour and rifles were state of the art, so she wasn't ready to become complacent.

Once the first group had been dispatched Viktoriya yelled at Dimitri to move up (she needed to yell to be heard over the noise coming from the plant, which was now like having a beehive pressed against each ear), and they broke their cover to run ahead. As they moved closer to the plant Viktoriya could just barely feel the ground vibrating beneath her boots, which was not a good sign.

They reached the outer wall of the Sarcophagus, the enormous concrete dome built over the plant in an attempt to contain some of the radiation. From where they were standing the wall looked completely solid, with no way for them to get in. "We'll need to run around to find a way in" Viktoriya said.

"Okay. Which way?" Dimitri asked.

As if to answer his question as gunshot rang out to their left, and another group of soldiers spilled out from the plant and started running towards them, firing erratically as they moved. "That way!" Viktoriya scrambled behind the nearest cover, which was a camo-painted military jeep that was facing towards the oncoming soldiers, with Dimitri close behind her.

Again, the Monolith soldiers didn't put up enough of a fight to justify their large numbers. Viktoriya thought they seemed far too eager to run out of cover and close distance, making it easy for the pair of them to pick off the moving soldiers and ignore the others. They moved up between cover one at a time during the breaks in fire caused by the enemy's nearly simultaneous reloads, slowly making their way to the opening in the outer sarcophagus.

After a fight that felt rather short to Viktoriya, considering that she'd shot and killed probably a dozen soldiers, they made it to the door into the plant. They took cover just inside the concrete wall to take out the last pair of soldiers coming for them, and then reloaded their weapons and took a moment to catch their breath.

"Well, I think I've about tripled the number of guys I've ever killed in the last hour" Viktoriya said to try and lighten the mood.

"Well, I suppose my kill count has gone up infinity percent now, hasn't it?" Dimitri's expression was stern; Viktoriya had somehow forgotten that this was the first time he had ever had to fire in anger, let alone actually connect with his rounds. She thought back to her first kill: it was during her time in the military, while she was stationed at a small outpost just north of the Cordon. It was around midnight, during her guard shift, when some bandits tried to ambush them. They fired first; she fired back and heard screams. The rest of her squad heard the shots and woke up to help take out the remaining bandits. They didn't suffer any casualties themselves, but the face of the man she'd killed had stuck with her ever since. She knew she had done the right thing, and had no problem killing bandits after that, but the knowledge was never able to shake away the memory.

"I'm sorry" Viktoriya said once she'd snapped out of her flashback. She felt bad; she should've known it was no laughing matter. "Come on, we need to keep moving." Dawn was just peeking over the horizon to the east as Viktoriya flipped on her flashlight and the pair of them moved quickly, but cautiously, into the dark heart of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The humming noise they had heard on their way into the plant was, surprisingly, a lot quieter on the inside, but the vibration beneath their feet had become stronger.

"Okay, I'd say we want to be heading downwards. That must be where the energy is stored" Dimitri said, a bit louder than necessary in the absence of the outside noise.

"How do you know that?" Viktoriya spoke in a whisper, not wanting to alert any soldiers to their position any more than the flashlight would already be doing.

"The vibrations coming up through the ground, and the fact that if the energy were stored up high the vibrations probably would've shattered the sarcophagus by now."

The inside of the plant was a pitch-black labyrinth of dirty corridors and rusted pipes and machinery. Viktoriya kept her rifle dug into her shoulder as they moved, and checked every corner before moving beyond it. She wasn't really expecting an ambush, considering the lack of coordination the soldiers they'd fought outside had shown, but it never hurt to be careful (and it could hurt a lot to not be). They had only been in the plant a short while when the monitor Dimitri was carrying, which had previously been attached to the remote he'd used to secrete the bricks of C4, began beeping.

"We should put our hoods on now; we're entering pretty serious radiation" he said, before zipping up his suit. Viktoriya followed suit and they continued on, inwards and downwards.

The clear plastic face-window on the protective suit didn't obscure Viktoriya's vision very much, which was fortunate, but she still found herself taking extra time to check around corners before moving. They had been wandering through the plant for hours, taking stairs downwards whenever they could find any that hadn't been blocked by rubble, when Viktoriya began to notice the tiny dents in the metal walls. Not only that, but there were also shell casings littered on the ground. She picked one up for a closer look. It was cold, and tarnished, so it had definitely been there for some time. She started to become suspicious.

"Why haven't we seen any more soldiers?" she whispered to Dimitri. "There seemed to be hundreds outside before."

"Well, maybe they couldn't come inside the plant because they don't have protection from radiation?"

"But we saw them coming out of here before. And besides, there are bullet marks and shell casings all over the place. There's definitely been a gunfight down here at some point."

"Well then maybe we killed all of them? Like you said before, there were a lot of soldiers outside."

"Yeah, I suppose you could be right there." It still didn't sit well with Viktoriya, but she shut up and kept walking.

The trail of bullet dents and shell casings seemed to be taking the same path downstairs as they were, so Viktoriya figured that it must be leading them to where they needed to go. "Did someone come down here before us?" Viktoriya wondered. When they seemed to be as far down into the earth as they could go, where the vibrations were coming from the walls rather than the floor, she noticed that the humming noise from outside was becoming louder again. As they moved towards the source of the noise Dimitri's radiation monitor started beeping again, even louder than before.

"The radiation here is beyond lethal now" he said, speaking loudly to surpass the humming noise. "Whatever you do, don't take the suit off." Viktoriya said she understood, and they continued on.

They followed the noise further, which eventually became louder than it had been anywhere outside, until it led them into a cylindrical chamber that stretched upwards for hundreds of metres. At the top the chamber opened out into the calm, grey morning sky above the plant. Once her eyes had travelled up to the top of the chamber she lowered them back down to the centre, which contained the source of the humming noise.

In front of them was a towering monstrosity of machinery. Viktoriya could barely tell how all of the various piping, frantically spinning turbines, computer readouts and control panels were even connected to each other. Around the centre of the machine, about thirty feet in the air, were eight large tanks of glowing green liquid. There was something floating in each of the tanks; something that looked vaguely humanoid in shape. She turned to ask Dimitri if he knew what they were looking at, but the stunned expression he was wearing told her that he didn't. Just as she was about to step forward and get a closer look at the monstrous thing a voice yelled at them.

"IF YOU DO NOT LEAVE THIS PLACE NOW YOU WILL DIE!" the voice yelled at them, echoing against the walls of the chamber. "YOU MAY HAVE PASSED THROUGH THE PSY-EMITTER FIELD UNAFFECTED, BUT YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE THE COMING EVENT."

The voice was deep and booming, but also raspy. It was as though an old man was speaking to them through the largest speaker system ever devised."Who are you!? What is this thing?!" Viktoriya yelled at the top of her voice, but her efforts were only just able to project over the noise of the machine. Still, whatever had been speaking was apparently able to hear her, for it responded.

"WE ARE KNOWN AS THE C-CONSCIOUSNESS. THE EIGHT OF US CONTROL THE MACHINE YOU SEE BEFORE CONTROL THE ZONE. WE *ARE* THE ZONE. SEVEN OF US CAUSED THE ZONE'S CREATION, MERELY BY MISTAKE, BUT WITH OUR EIGHTH MEMBER WE ARE ABLE TO EXACT PRECISE CONTROL OVER IT. AND SOON, WE WILL EXPAND THE ZONE TO FURTHER OUR REACH INTO THE NOOSPHERE."

"What the fuck is a Noosphere!?" Viktoriya yelled, partly at Dimitri and partly at whoever was controlling the booming voice. Dimitri opened his mouth to respond, but the booming voice drowned out his answer.

"THE NOOSPHERE IS THE FIELD OF INFORMATION THAT SURROUNDS THE EARTH, AND LINKS ALL CREATURES WITH COGNITIVE ABILITIES. SEVEN OF US CREATED THE ZONE IN AN ATTEMPT TO REACH INTO THIS SPHERE. WE WANTED TO REMOVE ALL NEGATIVE FEELINGS FROM MANKIND, ALL ANGER AND GREED AND HOSTILITY, BUT WE WERE UNSUCCESSFUL. SEVEN OF US DEDICATED OUR LIVES TO CONTAINING THE ZONE THEREAFTER. BUT, WITH THE ADDITION OF OUR EIGHTH MEMBER, WE WERE ABLE TO SEE THAT OUR GOAL WAS NOT LOST. WITH THE EXPANSION OF THE ZONE, WE WILL BE ONE STEP CLOSER TO ACHIEVING OUR ULTIMATE VISION OF IMPROVING MANKIND."

Viktoriya heard a gunshot from behind, followed by a bullet shattering one of the computer monitors attached to the machine in front of her. Spinning around, she saw a group of soldiers coming towards them from the hallway they had entered through, all wearing radiation suits. She grabbed Dimitri and dragged him into cover beside the doorway, then pulled a grenade from her belt. "You deal with this thing, I'll hold off the guards!" She yelled at him, pulling the pin from the grenade and holding the handle tight. "Don't walk in front of the door." She loosened her grip from the grenade for a second to let it cook off, then lobbed it into the hallway. Dimitri turned and walked back into the room, staying close to the wall, and waited for the grenade to go off in the distance before speaking (though he barely heard the explosion).

"People will die if the zone expands!" he yelled, unsure if the voice would hear him over the humming of the machine AND Viktoriya's rifle, which was firing out into the hallway every few seconds. "How could you possibly improve mankind by killing people!?"

"THE SOLDIERS YOU AND YOUR COMPANION HAVE BEEN FIGHTING WERE ALL AFFECTED BY THE PSY-EMITTER, KNOWN TO YOU AS THE 'BRAIN SCORCHER.' ONCE THEY PASSED THROUGH THE FIELD WE WERE ABLE TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS. THEY FEEL NO ANGER, NO HOSTILITY. THEY ACT ACCORDING TO OUR WISHES. THEY CREATED THE MACHINE YOU SEE BEFORE YOU, ACCORDING TO OUR INSTRUCTIONS, AND MOVED US HERE TO CONTROL IT. WE WILL USE THE MACHINE TO EXPAND THE ZONE FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND. ONCE WE CHANNEL THE ENERGY STORED HERE INTO THE EXPANSION OF THE ZONE WE WILL BE ABLE TO SPREAD THE PSY-EMITTER'S FIELD FURTHER, AND AFFECT MORE PEOPLE WITH ITS BLESSING."

"If being mind-controlled means I'm gonna run out of cover and get shot to hell I'll pass, thanks!" Viktoriya yelled while she paused to reload her rifle.

"IT DOES NOT MATTER. YOU WILL DIE HERE WHEN WE RELEASE THE ENERGY STORED IN THE MACHINE."

"So you're going to cause an emission. Is that it?!"

"NO, WHAT YOU CALL AN EMISSION IS AN UNCONTROLLED RELEASE OF THE ZONE'S LATENT ENERGY. THIS WILL BE A PRECISE EVENT, DIRECTED UPWARDS INTO THE NOOSPHERE. THAT IS HOW WE WILL EXPAND THE ZONE, AND YOU ARE TOO LATE TO STOP US."

The machine became even louder somehow when the voice had finished speaking, building up to a beyond deafening rumble as the machine seemed to be approaching a violent crescendo.

"Viktoriya, we have to do something!" When Dimitri turned to her he saw that she hadn't heard him, and was still engaged in a gunfight against the Monolith soldiers. He couldn't hear the gunshots over the noise of the machine, so to him it seemed like there was a giant piece of soundproof glass blocking him from her. He realized that she would need to continue fighting, and so he decided to deal with the machine himself.

"If I can shut this thing down then the energy should bleed out safely." He looked around the room for any power cables that he could yank out or disrupt, but there were none. He could see some high above his head, even higher than the green tanks. He briefly considered climbing up, but there were far too many moving parts on the machine for him to stand a chance of getting up there without having an arm yanked off and pulverized. "Shit, got to think of something else, then."

He wished he still had his bricks of C4 with him. "That would take care of things easily enough" he thought. Desperate, he started bashing his rifle's butt against the nearest control panel, bending the dials and smashing the glass screens on the displays. However, the machine didn't appear to be reacting at all to the attack.

'Shitshitshit!" They were running out of time, and Dimitri was running out of ideas. "There must be a way I can stop them from controlling the energy!" His eyes caught the glowing tanks again, their green liquid interior reminding him of a cartoonish depiction of nuclear waste. "Well, they've gotta be important for something" he figured. Dimitri raised the rifle to aim at one of them, held his breath like Viktoriya had taught him to, and fired a burst of three rounds at the tank. The glass smashed and fell and the green fluid drained out, splashing across the floor like a very runny lime-flavoured jelly. The green liquid was shortly followed by a steady drip of a different, deep red liquid. He looked up and saw that it was the blood draining from the figure in the tank, which had slumped down against the metal bar that once supported the now broken glass tank. It was definitely a human.

The voice had spoken of eight people who controlled the machine, and there were eight tanks above him (well, seven now). Each tank had a figure floating in it, just like the one that was twitching slightly as it emptied its life's blood onto the floor.

The machine shuddered in response to the loss, and then resumed whirring away as fast as it had been. The voice yelled at him: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? YOU CANNOT HOPE TO STOP US. WE CAN GIVE YOU A LIFETIME OF INFINITE HAPPINESS, BUT YOU HAVE TO STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW!" The voice was panicked, desperate, as though it feared for its life. Now that Dimitri knew what was in the tanks the fear made sense to him.

Dimitri, not even pausing to consider the machine's offer, raised his rifle to aim at the next tank along, fired another burst of bullets and smashed that one too. The voice boomed out in curses, but Dimitri ignored it as he moved around the room, taking out each of the eight tanks in turn and feeling the machine stutter and quieten in response. Dimitri had expected the machine to stop completely once he'd destroyed the eighth, but instead it sped back up again. The machine seemed to be shaking back and forth now, threatening to tear itself from the ground, and was crackling with electricity. Parts were falling out of place and flying out of place, and several of the displays exploded, sending shards of glass flying at the walls. It seemed like the whole thing would explode at any moment, unable to control the energy that had been stored within.

Dimitri ran back to Viktoriya, nearly slipping on the floor slick with blood and still-unidentified green liquid. The humming was quieter now, but the machine was still exploding every few seconds behind them, forcing Dimitri to yell over the clanging of metal parts against the ground. "WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW! THIS WHOLE PLACE IS GONNA BLOW!"

"JUST A SECOND" Viktoriya yelled back. "I'VE NEARLY GOT THE LAST OF THESE GU- AHH, FUCK!" she gasped in pain and dropped her rifle as one of the displays exploded behind her, rocketing a large shard of glass into her right shoulder blade. It happened in an instant, faster than anything Dimitri could even see, let alone react to.

There were still gunshots coming at them from the hallway. Viktoriya grabbed her last grenade with her good left arm, pulled the pin out with her teeth and threw it into the hallway. It exploded, and the firing stopped. Viktoriya, despite herself, slumped against the wall, feeling sick and exhausted.

Dimitri could only stutter as he stared at the triangular shard of glass protruding from Viktoriya's shoulder. "Y-your suit." The glass had ripped a five-inch gash in the back of her protective suit, exposing her to the catastrophic radiation levels still flooding the plant. "We have to get you out of here!" He grabbed her arm and tried to drag her from the room, causing her to scream in pain (it was the wrong arm). He apologized, grabbed the other arm and, more gently this time, helped her to her feet.

Viktoriya gained her footing and walked outside with Dimitri's help, leaving her rifle behind, but stopped when they were outside the metal door. "We need to get this door closed" she said as she shook free of Dimitri's grasp and started feebly pushing against it, while the door didn't even register her efforts.

"No, you need to get out of here! The radiation will kill you!"

"It's already killed me!" She snapped back at him, before dropping her gaze from his. "I-I can feel it. Like you said, it's lethal. But if we don't get this door closed the explosion will kill you too. Now help me"

Dimitri, wordlessly, went over to the door and pushed it closed. The door sealed shut automatically, and Viktoriya slumped sideways against the wall. Tired, nauseous and, ultimately, defeated, she sat there while Dimitri looked down at her, tears streaming down his face and fogging the window of his suit.

Viktoriya unzipped the back of her hood and pulled in down from her face, breathing in the cold, metallic air of the plant. "You know, I completely forgot to look for my father once we passed the brain scorcher." She sighed before continuing: "but then, it's not like he'd ever been looking out for me." She smiled feebly at her own poignant little joke, before turning to Dimitri.

"Listen, there's a few things I need you to do for me."

"Of course" Dimitri sputtered. "Anything."

Breathing was becoming harder for her now, but she choked the air down and continued speaking. "First: go find cover somewhere. Then, when this is all over, head straight home. Get out of the zone as quickly as possible. Hire a Stalker from the bar at Duty to take you back to Sidorovich's, then speak to Yevhen the doctor. He'll want to know what happened, and he can give you supplies to get you the rest of the way. Anyway, just get the hell out of the zone and never come back."

Dimitri understood what she was telling him. "That won't be a problem. I'm not cut out to be a Stalker."

"Nobody is; that's why we keep getting killed." She mustered up a feeble smile again, which Dimitri reciprocated this time. He knelt down and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was the most affection she could remember anyone showing her in over five years. "Now go find cover, and don't turn around when you hear it."

Dimitri, thinking she meant the explosion, nodded at her. He then flipped on the flashlight on his rifle and ran down the hallway to find a tight corner he could seal himself into, stepping over a dozen corpses wearing radiation suits along the way.

Viktoriya watched him go and, once he was out of earshot, retched up the contents of her stomach onto the cold concrete floor. She then reached around herself with her right arm and yanked out the glass with one smooth motion. The warm blood began trickling down her back, soaking her undershirt and sticking it to her uncomfortably. She was wheezing for air now, had a pounding headache and the worst nausea she'd ever experienced but, luckily, still had enough strength to reach down to her holster and grab her Browning pistol. She took a moment to enjoy the weight of it (though it felt like it weighed a thousand tons in that moment) and the familiar feel of the grip between her fingers. She didn't need to chamber a round; she'd always carried it with one ready to go.

Dimitri was still running down the corridor when he heard the shot echo out. He didn't look back.

Lieutenant Ivan Pasternack was sitting in front of General Voronin, the leader of Duty, who was fuming so hard that he seemed likely to reach over the desk and knock his teeth out at any moment. "Great, first those fucking Freedomers decide to go and break the ceasefire agreement, and now they have the nerve to tell us that the officer they've held for weeks has escaped! Do they really think we're that stupid!?"

"I agree sir. We can't allow them t-"

"Shut the fuck up, Pasternack!" Voronin interrupted. "It was your fucking botched prisoner exchange that let them get the upper hand on us! What I want to know is why you decided to change the Stalkers around at the last minute."

"These Stalkers agreed to take a smaller payment for the job, sir. I couldn't see any reason not to give them the job." The late-afternoon sun was coming through the window behind General Voronin, stinging Ivan's eyes.

"Right, of course. Using bargain-basement Stalkers for a job that had the life of one of our officer on the line; what a perfect fucking idea! How you ever became an officer yourself I'll never know." Voronin picked up the coffee mug that was sitting on his desk and took a large sip, grimacing at the taste (even high level officers couldn't get good coffee in the zone, as Ivan himself knew). "So, since this is your mess, what are your plans to get Warrant Officer Nikolic home?"

"Um, well… we should send out small scouting parties to look for him around the road to the north. If he escaped then he may have fallen into some misfortune on his way back here."

"Right, so you believe that they're telling us the truth. Just like they told the truth when they said they would agree to a permanent ceasefire? Or like they were telling the truth when they said they wouldn't try anything funny during the prisoner exchange? We've already lost eleven men this week to that giant fucking blowout, and now you want to send more out there to be picked off by dogs and snipers at the Barrier?"

"I know it sounds ridiculous, sir, but I can't see any reason why they would lie to us. Why say he's escaped and make themselves appear incompetent, when they could still be using him as a bargaining chip? The only way I can make sense of it is that he did escape, and they assumed he must have made it back here before they discovered him. That or…"

"That or they got tired of feeding him and decided to put one between his eyes and throw him to the dogs. Of course, if they have done that then it would mean outright war, which is what I'm about ready to give them."

Ivan was about to say something else when another soldier opened the door. "Um, sir, there's a Stalker here asking to see Lieutenant Pasternack. Says he was one of the two Stalkers that performed the prisoner exchange."

Both Ivan and Voronin fell silent for a moment. "Send him in" Voronin eventually said.

Dimitri walked through the door looking like a walking corpse. He clearly hadn't slept in some time, his clothes were torn and his face was covered in scratches and bruises. Most noticeable was his eyes, which were wide open and badly bloodshot. He also smelled like he hadn't showered for some time. Without saying anything he handed Ivan a pair of dogtags hanging on metal chains. One was inscribed with the Duty emblem, reading the name "Maksym Serhiy Nikolic." The other featured the Freedom emblem, and had the name "Vasiliy Mykhail Kohut" on it. Ivan handed the tags to Voronin, who studied them for a moment. He was about to open his mouth to ask for more information, but Dimitri cut him off. "The Freedom soldier killed Nikolic, but he was acting alone. He'd intended to kill all three of us, but Viktoriya stopped him."

"And where is Viktoriya now?" Ivan asked. Dimitri responded only by dropping his gaze, which was all the answer he needed. He'd been waiting for the day that news would come, as he did for everybody he knew in the zone, but it still stung more than a little.

After a moment Voronin spoke again. "Well, it seems to me that you've done Duty a great service. Mr…"

"Sokoloff. Dimitri Sokoloff."

"Right. Well, we always make sure to pay our Stalkers handsomely, but we're unfortunately short of money due to our current circumstances. If there's anything you need from us, name it."

"Just one thing" Dimitri said. "I need someone to escort me to the Agropom Facility."

"Done. I'll assign a pair of soldiers to the job. They'll meet you at the south gate tomorrow morning, 0800 hours."

"Make it six" Dimitri said. "I need to get out of here as soon as I can."


End file.
